REMEMBER Michael Gove telling voters “We will hold all the cards” outside of the EU and Boris Johnson’s boast that the US was ready to sign a trade deal with Britain — only to be told we would be at the back of the line?
 
A trade deal with Canada was supposed to be easy — a “rollover” from the Canada-EU deal but it has proved to be a bungled attempt by the Brexiteers in the Tory Party to pretend that Britain is a powerful global trading nation.
 
The slapdash agreements with Australia and New Zealand negotiated by the Truss regime have proved to be embarrassingly poor.

The much-vaunted trade deal with India, which unions have flagged significant concerns about due to abuses of workers’ rights there, was supposed to be signed by Diwali 2022, but it is still not done with stumbling blocks on business mobility, Scotch whisky, autos, farm products, pharmaceuticals and rules of origin — and a general election in India.

The Pacific Rim deal with 11 countries (CTPPT), when analysed in detail, is proving to be minuscule in benefit to Britain and important chapters in the agreements on workers’ rights and social and environmental issues have been sidelined or conveniently forgotten about.
 
The fallout in negotiations with Canada revolves around tariffs on cheese and automotives — and, as expected, the Canadian government has pushed hard to export hormone-treated beef to Britain.
 
There is anxiety in the auto sector on the impact on job security of not getting a deal on rules of origin with Canada, and British car makers face the prospect of higher tariffs to sell vehicles into the Canadian market from the start of April.
 
Equally, there are concerns about lowering food standards, which unions have rightly flagged up in the past. The problem for workers is that the British government’s whole approach is to avoid any consultation with British unions — allowing for one sector to be played off against another.
 
Britain is learning we don’t “hold all the cards.” Countries who we want deals with to replace being in membership of the EU single market and customs union have their own growing red lines and demands as Britain’s negotiating position gets weaker.
 
Trade with Canada was worth £19.2 billion with British imports from Canada worth £7.3bn and British exports to Canada worth £11.8bn.
 
Business Secretary Kemi Badenoch (a contender for leadership of the Tory Party) has tried to play hardball and come unstuck before.

She was originally shut out of talks on auto tariffs with the US until the EU had done a deal and she signed up on “a take it or leave it” basis and flew to the US trying to kick start trade talks while at the same time appearing on platforms with right-wing think tanks and the plan of resorting to signing non-legally binding memorandums of understandings with individual US states such as North Carolina, South Carolina, Oklahoma, Utah, and Washington is proving to be embarrassing.
 
It is also interesting to read that some Tories even still believe that if they cling to power and Trump wins the White House we could get a trade deal with the US no matter how dreadful it will be, selling workers out yet again.
 
If Labour wins a majority at the general election it will need to reset Britain’s trade strategy and end this nonsense. There is a need to focus on transparency, as well as strong employment protections for workers on both sides, strong social and environmental clauses and importantly a seat at the table for trade unions from the start to the finish.

Tony Burke is the president of the Confederation of Shipbuilding and Engineering Union and co-chair of the Campaign For Trade Union Freedom.