Labour: End of 2022 marks year of “broken promises” from Tories on trade

Labour has warned that midnight on December 31st will be the moment that the Tories officially break their manifesto pledge to deliver “80% of UK trade covered by free trade agreements within the next three years” by the end of 2022.

Nick Thomas-Symonds MP has argued that “the Conservative record on trade this year has either been delivering no deals or bad deals” as the Shadow International Trade Secretary highlighted that promised deals between the UK and other countries, including the US and India, have failed to materialise.

Thomas-Symonds said: “2022 will represent a year of broken promises and failure on trade from the Conservatives: promise to deliver a USA trade deal, broken; promise of a trade deal with India by Diwali, broken; promise to have 80% of UK trade covered by free trade agreement by the end of 2022, broken.

“At the same time, we have seen economic chaos, tarnishing the UK’s international reputation. The Conservative record on trade, has either been delivering no delas or bad deals.”

Departmental analysis suggested that a deal with the US would result in an increase in trade of approximately £15.3bn. A government source said earlier this month, however, that while a trade deal with the US had been crucial to meeting the government’s 80% target the Biden administration was not prioritising it.

The government also set a target of achieving a deal with India by November 12th, which was missed. Trade deals have been signed with the EU and 71 countries including Australia, New Zealand and Japan.

Ministers have been criticised this week for refusing to publish an estimate of the economic benefits of its latest planned Brexit trade deal with Israel. The Department for International Trade said making public the projected benefit of the enhanced agreement with the country “isn’t appropriate”.

The government has been mocked for the small benefit of potential post-Brexit trade deals. When the government launched talks with the US in 2020, it revealed it was expecting the agreement to provide just a 0.16% boost to GDP by 2035.

Its strategic case for a deal with New Zealand estimated a gain of “between 0.00% and 0.01%” in the long run, under the best-case scenario. These figures were set against an expected hit to GDP from leaving the EU of around 4%.

Recent former Tory ministers have also criticised post-Brexit trade deals. George Eustice MP, who helped negotiate a deal with Australia while Secretary of State for DEFRA, described it as “not actually a very good deal for the UK” and warned that “the UK gave away far too much for far too little in return”.

Thomas-Symonds added: “The country cannot go on like this and Labour has a plan to rebuild our international reputation, improve support for exporters and power export led growth in every part of the UK, as part of our green prosperity plan.”