November 9, 2024

Liz Truss’s Australia trade deal is not good for the UK and we have been ‘on the back foot repeatedly’, former minister says

George Eustice #GeorgeEustice

  • George Eustice claims Australia trade agreement ‘is not very good for the UK’
  • He accused Liz Truss of ‘shattering’ the UK’s negotiating position for quick deal 
  • Ms Truss hailed 2021 deal as a ‘win-win deal for £14billion trading relationship’ 
  • But outcome caused uproar among British farmers who claim it was one sided 
  • Boris Johnson and Liz Truss’s landmark trade agreement with Australia ‘is not a very good deal for the UK’, a former Cabinet minister has said.

    George Eustice, who was directly involved in the negotiations as environment secretary, accused Miss Truss of ‘shattering’ the UK’s negotiating position to get a deal done quickly.

    Miss Truss had hailed the 2021 deal as a ‘win-win deal for our £14billion trading relationship’, claiming it offered ‘lower prices and more choice for UK shoppers’. 

    But the outcome caused immediate uproar among British farmers, who said it was a ‘one-sided deal’ that ‘capitulated to Australian demands’.

    George Eustice (pictured) accused former Prime Minister Liz Truss of ¿shattering¿ the UK¿s negotiating position to get a deal done quickly

    George Eustice (pictured) accused former Prime Minister Liz Truss of ‘shattering’ the UK’s negotiating position to get a deal done quickly

    He claims that Boris Johnson and Liz Truss¿s landmark trade agreement with Australia ¿is not a very good deal for the UK¿

    He claims that Boris Johnson and Liz Truss’s landmark trade agreement with Australia ‘is not a very good deal for the UK’

    Yesterday, Mr Eustice laid bare the furious disagreement between Miss Truss, then acting as trade secretary, and his Department of Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, which supports UK farming. 

    He told the Commons: ‘The UK went into this negotiation holding the strongest hand, holding all of the best cards.

    ‘But at some point in early summer 2021, the then trade secretary [Miss Truss] took a decision to set an arbitrary target to conclude heads of terms by the time of the G7 summit, and from that moment the UK was on the back foot repeatedly.’

    Mr Eustice – who had campaigned for Brexit – warned that ‘unless we recognise the failures that the Department for International Trade made during the Australia negotiations, we won’t be able to learn the lessons for future negotiations’.

    The Australian deal was crucial because it was the first free trade agreement negotiated following Brexit that did not simply roll over an existing arrangement with an EU trading partner.

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