The IPPR have carried out some polling research about a US - UK trade deal (HERE). A huge majority of people in Britain (82%) think we should reject a trade deal if this means accepting US food standards, particularly chlorine washed chickens and hormone fed beef. This comes just a few days after the American Trade department issued its annual report (HERE) and mentions the ongoing dispute with the EU about the US wanting EU rules on food safety, chemicals, animal welfare and the environment to be scrapped.
The EU has some clout in these matters. It can resist. Imagine what would happen if we tried to negotiate a trade deal with the USA as an independent country.
Japan recently said (HERE) they would prioritise a trade deal with the EU. India has said much the same thing (HERE). Brexiteer have a touching faith in the Commonwealth coming to our rescue as that "Anglosphere". But Ian Jack at The Guardian doesn't see it that way at all (HERE) and neither does Richard Corbett (HERE).
Patrick Murphy, director of the Institute of Commonwealth Studies has written a book: The Empire’s New Clothes: The Myth of the Commonwealth and in an article he is even more disparaging (HERE) about the prospects of the Commonwealth replacing our trade with the EU. He says,
Patrick Murphy, director of the Institute of Commonwealth Studies has written a book: The Empire’s New Clothes: The Myth of the Commonwealth and in an article he is even more disparaging (HERE) about the prospects of the Commonwealth replacing our trade with the EU. He says,
"For Britain’s administrative elite, the Commonwealth is a bit like a grandfather clock that has been in the family for generations. It hasn’t told the right time for decades, but no one has the heart to take such a treasured heirloom to the tip.
"For the leave campaign, depicting the Commonwealth as a huge potential trading opportunity for the UK was a useful fiction. This was reassuring mood music for a campaign keen to demonstrate that Britain would not be left helpless and isolated after Brexit. Yet beyond a few hand-me-down figures about its supposed economic potential, there were few clues about how or why the volume of trade with Commonwealth member states would be increased".
Personally, I don't see us signing any significant trade deals until our future relationship with the EU is settled. Not just a political declaration but a detailed and legally binding agreement ratified by both the UK and all the EU nations. Until the limits of our access to the EU market is clear I don't see any country wanting to spend the time and effort negotiating a trade deal with us.
And more than this, with the referendum result a close one and with support for Brexit falling away who is going to believe our long term future is outside the EU anyway?
