FT reveals that Britain failed to finalise most trade deals aimed to replace EU’s 40 existing agreements
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Britain has failed to finalise most trade deals needed to replace the EU’s 40 existing agreements with leading global economies and will not be close to doing so when Brexit occurs on March 29, according to an internal Whitehall memorandum. The memo, compiled by civil servants as part of contingency planning for the UK crashing out of the EU without a formal Brussels divorce agreement, warned that most of the deals would lapse without a transition period that keeps Britain under the EU umbrella once Brexit occurs.
“Almost none of them are ready to go now and none will be ready to go by March,” said one government official who has seen the internal analysis of the Department of International Trade’s progress. Liam Fox, the international trade secretary, had vowed to “replicate” the EU’s existing trade deals — which are among the world’s biggest, including bilateral agreements with G7 members Canada and Japan — before Britain left the bloc, and other pro-Brexit campaigners argued they could be easily copied.
“We’re going to replicate the 40 EU free trade agreements that exist before we leave the European Union so we’ve got no disruption of trade,” said Mr Fox shortly after the Article 50 exit process was triggered in 2017. “Believe me, we’ll have up to 40 ready for one second after midnight in March 2019.” As recently as November, George Hollingbery, the trade minister, told MPs that the UK would “roll over” the majority of the EU’s trade agreements in time for a no-deal Brexit.
