Over the past 18 months, I have scrutinised the work of the Department for International Trade, and on several occasions had the opportunity to grill its lead Minister: Dr Liam Fox. From insisting on the need for full parliamentary oversight of future trade deals to ensuring that public services like the NHS are not threatened by such deals –our committee’s work has been focussed promoting trade policy that is grounded in fairness and ethics as well as recognising our vital relationship with the EU- a relationship incidentally I want to preserve and protect.
As an EU member, the UK is automatically included within over forty trade deals with more than seventy countries. Should the UK crash out without a deal, these trade agreements would fall away immediately –a fact that scores of parliamentarians continue to remind the Prime Minister at every opportunity.
Now, with only 200 hours left until the UK could - still - crash out of the EU with no-deal, we are faced with yet another reality of this Government: the woeful lack of significant trade agreements confirmed. Yet Mr Fox has a vision of post-Brexit Britain as a buccaneering, free-trading explorer, travelling far and wide to sign hundreds of new trade agreements, ideally on a new Royal Yacht Britannia.
