The government is celebrating its first big post-Brexit trade deal, with South Africa and five of its southern African neighbours. Theresa May even did a little dance to mark the occasion (if you haven’t seen it yet, it’s quite something).
Except this isn’t a big deal. It’s not even a new deal. It’s the first of dozens of deals the UK needs to secure just to keep the same beneficial trading terms with over 60 other countries which we now enjoy as members of the EU. If you remember, these are the “roll over” deals Liam Fox promised to have ready “one second after midnight” on March 29 2019. Doubts have since been cast on the ease with which this can be achieved.
The government’s triumphant comments around this southern African pact are laughable. The deal will allow UK shoppers “to continue to enjoy southern African wine, tea and fruits”, we’re told. It will provide the “strong foundations on which we can build a closer trade and investment partnership in the future” – foundations which were already in place and only at risk of being eroded thanks to Brexit!
Demand a vote on the Brexit deal
Click here to find out moreIn the grand scale of UK trade, these six nations aren’t a huge deal either – the other countries are Botswana, Lesotho, Mozambique, Namibia and Swaziland. Last year the UK exported £2.4 billion worth of goods to southern Africa – just 0.7% of its total exports. We still stand to lose preferential access to much bigger markets elsewhere in the globe, not least the EU’s single market which accounts for around half our trade, as well as Japan and Canada.
Brexit also threatens to undermine the “closer trade and investment partnership” the government wants with the African continent. Analysis shows that in any Brexit scenario the UK economy will be smaller than it would be if we stay in the EU. In relation to Africa, that means less to spend on overseas development projects, less to invest in African economies, and fewer trading opportunities for African businesses in a less dynamic UK economy.
The way in which Brexit will make us less able to strike deals around the world shows “Global Britain” for the empty Brexiter rhetoric it really is. It’s nothing to dance about.
Edited by Hugo Dixon
She will presumably have to undo the dance if Brexit does not happen.
Contemptible lying woman. But soft! I am feeling some warmth for her in the context of the probable upcoming leadership challenge by fat Alexander de Piffle. That is to be resisted by all right thinking people, and we all know many tories are amongst those who’d kill to stop the clown getting the keys to no.10. But what a position to be in, to sympathise with a fool and a rogue like her!!
The Brexiteers are as staunch and as deluded as ever, with an ever-increasing tone of evangelical hysteria as the difficulties and contradictions mount every day. In sadistic moments I long to see their expressions when the s–t hits the fan.
Still, there might be some advantage in replacing Denmark with Swaziland or Lesotho. Almost like having a bargain-basement British Empire again.
One thing more embarrassing than her Fridge-Dance (If such a sight were possible) was the interview with Michael Crick when he asked her what she’d done to help Mandela in his prison cell.
Such a pity most of the South African administration – not to mention practically every human being in the whole Continent – see the UK as not totally trustworthy, to say the least.
How embarrassing to watch the so-called dance – exceeded only by the embarrassingly humiliating images of our “leaders” scratching around the world as they ever more desperately try to cobble together so-called trade deals. As I see it there is nothing they have done which couldn’t be done as a full EU member.
Nothing to say about the expropriation of farms without compensation in the RSA? But then, human rights never count for much with Kerenski May.