Monday, November 14, 2022 at 8 :53 pm
George Eustice, an ex-Environment Minister, stated that the UK/Australia free trade agreement was a poor deal for a country who “gave way too much for too few in return”.
Eustis made a strong speech in the House of Commons and blamed Liz Truss, who was the international trade secretary at that time, for making too many concessions for New Zealand and Australian farmers.
He stated that it was unnecessary for the UK not to offer them complete liberalization on beef and sheep because “neither Australia or New Zealand has anything to give for such a great privilege”.
He accused Truss of setting arbitrarily high targets to conclude the terms by the G7 summit in 2020. He also revealed that the UK had been “repeatedly behind” since that time.
The former minister acknowledged that there was some progress in the deal, such agricultural guarantees, but these breakthroughs were small compared to the concessions which only came from his Ministry.
“It’s not surprising that many areas were areas negotiated either solely or predominantly by Devra for the UK team,” Devra stated.
The The deal was signed in December last yearTruss was promoted to foreign minister three-months ago. Boris Johnson, then-Prime Minister, hailed him as one the biggest successes of Brexit.
Eustis: We must learn from Australia’s deal
George Eustice was a strong supporter of Brexit. She was the environment minister during the negotiations – before Truss fired her two months later when she was serving as prime minister.
He explained that as a member of the Parliament, he didn’t feel obliged to give a “positive view” to what had been achieved.
“Unless we acknowledge the failures of the Department of International Trade during the Australia negotiations, we will not be able to learn the lessons of future negotiations,” Eustice said.
After Eustis’ dramatic revelations, Labor shadow international trade secretary Nick Thomas Symonds criticised the deal.
He stated that he was right to criticize the government’s approach. The Conservatives lack a strategy for trade and have let the UK down. This will lead to a decline in investment, jobs and growth. We can’t afford to continue with this government. We need a general election.
Kimi Badenoch (current Commerce Secretary) refuted Eustis’ criticisms of the deal.
He said city in the morning: “The deal we had with Australia – which was agreed collectively by a cabinet that included George Eustis himself – is set to open up more than £10bn of trade.
Australia and New Zealand have large markets in Asia, and they don’t use their duty-free allocations. The attack by the former secretary of EFRA is incorrect. This deal will not hurt British agriculture.
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