The Department for International Trade has been hard at work recently and hooray, we have a trade deal that will save the UK from the abyss once we are into the brave new world of Brexit! That economic superpower, the Faroe Islands, has signed a trade agreement that allows fish and crabs to be imported into the UK. It looks like the great British fish and chips dinner has beaten back those hoards of beastly Eurocrats! This is real Brexit - making our own trade deals with the major economies around the planet!
Except that the trade deal is simply a rollover of the existing EU trade agreement with the Faroes. So, far from Brexit letting us negotiate our own trade agreements, instead, Britain is free to negotiate for what we already have. The only difference is that we now have to pay for our own Department of International Trade when previously the EU would have carried out international trade negotiations on our behalf. It would be interesting to see the price we pay to run this department. How much does photocopying other people's work cost these days?
(Photo of me in Torshavn, Faroe Islands, June 2009)
Government press release on this link.
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