If Britain does ever leave the European Union with no deal, by accident or by design, then it will have at least some countries it can do business with. With only a few weeks to the putative Brexit day of 29 March, and with well over two years of preparatory work behind it, the Department for International Trade has managed to secure a mere three out of the 40 agreements the UK enjoys through EU membership, which cover 71 countries.
Where once there was brave, proud talk of trade deals being “signature ready” on 29 March with the likes of the United States, Japan, Australia and South Korea, no major economies are yet ready to trade with the UK on anything like the mutually advantageous terms that are now in existence via the EU’s efforts. Apparently the Faroe Islands have been sorted out, but there are disturbing allegations that some world “powers” that are still smaller than Britain are being bullied into agreeing trade deals that may be anything but free and fair.
The Department for International Trade is rightly being criticised for attempting to push Ghana, Mauritius, Kenya, Namibia and Swaziland into offering the UK advantageous arrangements – advantageous, that is, for the British. It is ironic that when so many in Britain rail against the EU, itself 10 times larger than Britain economically, for using its size to extract a hard bargain, the UK should be doing precisely the same thing to some of the world’s poorer nations. It has an almost imperialist feel to it, colouring the map of the world pink with the territories that Liam Fox has managed to “conquer” for their supplies of bananas, sugar and cut flowers.
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Just as the British are being driven into a “blind Brexit” through their own incompetence in talks and the determination of the EU to drive a hard bargain, so the British are now doing the same to these smaller territories.
Britain Before Brexit: Northeast England
Show all 12
Britain Before Brexit: Northeast England
1/12 Middlesbrough
After midnight, New Year’s Eve. A girl looks at her phone and smokes, framed against a line-up of antiquated postcard features of Britain. She’s the most authentic part of the scene, however, a glimpse of modern Britain, while the red phone box belongs to the past
Richard Morgan/The Independent
2/12 Middlesbrough
I walk through a field by the industrial estate where several horses live chained to the ground. They feed on thinning grass. The Transporter Bridge lies in the background: an emblem of movement and motion and crossing divides, like a cruel joke played on the animals, stuck and fixed and static
Richard Morgan/The Independent
3/12 Middlesbrough
The first second of 2019, welcomed with with a kiss, a hug, with stares and smiles, with a shot thrown down a throat, with phones and photos and forgetting
Richard Morgan/The Independent
4/12 Middlesbrough
Shoes hang from lines of communication, sagging between houses, pulling down on the words and silences that somehow run through these black wires. It reminded me of the view from my bedroom window in Poland
Richard Morgan/The Independent
5/12 Middlesbrough
A queue to keep going, into the night, further into 2019 before sleeping. Vape rises distinctly, a new sight on the street in the last few years, bringing atmospheric emissions to the image. There’s sweat and purpose and promise
Richard Morgan/The Independent
6/12 Middlesbrough
I’m struck by this naming and shaming, by the identification of supposed disloyalty, clearly marking the public space of the city for all to see, whether they care or not, whether they know or not
Richard Morgan/The Independent
7/12 Hartlepool
A view from inside the Market Hall, looking out, onto another person sitting on the street and another person faced with the experience of walking by. Both lower their heads, as if in acknowledgement of the difficulty of the situation
Richard Morgan/The Independent
8/12 Hartlepool
I walk to the end of a long jetty by the marina. Fisherman stand at the furthest tip, waiting for a bite, looking to the horizon where faint puffs of smoke appear and vanish from factories further down the east coast
Richard Morgan/The Independent
9/12 Seaham
Dwelling spaces of the dead and the living, closer than usual, occupying the same public space, both observable in one view, the burial ground of the local church acting as a garden for the housing estate behind
Richard Morgan/The Independent
10/12 Sunderland
A walk by the River Wear is comically framed from the Wearmouth Bridge, a view unavailable to the couple, who probably have no idea they’re walking into shot. Some things just cannot be appreciated at ground level and can only be seen from above
Richard Morgan/The Independent
11/12 Sunderland
Somebody once wrote this on a wall. That’s all. But now it’s part of the scene, part of the view, part of the experience of walking up High Street West into town. It’s tiny and anonymous, but noticeable and affecting
Richard Morgan/The Independent
12/12 Sunderland
Three elements of the city: a flapping pigeon; an austere grey tower block; purchasable sex
Richard Morgan/The Independent
1/12 Middlesbrough
After midnight, New Year’s Eve. A girl looks at her phone and smokes, framed against a line-up of antiquated postcard features of Britain. She’s the most authentic part of the scene, however, a glimpse of modern Britain, while the red phone box belongs to the past
Richard Morgan/The Independent
2/12 Middlesbrough
I walk through a field by the industrial estate where several horses live chained to the ground. They feed on thinning grass. The Transporter Bridge lies in the background: an emblem of movement and motion and crossing divides, like a cruel joke played on the animals, stuck and fixed and static
Richard Morgan/The Independent
3/12 Middlesbrough
The first second of 2019, welcomed with with a kiss, a hug, with stares and smiles, with a shot thrown down a throat, with phones and photos and forgetting
Richard Morgan/The Independent
4/12 Middlesbrough
Shoes hang from lines of communication, sagging between houses, pulling down on the words and silences that somehow run through these black wires. It reminded me of the view from my bedroom window in Poland
Richard Morgan/The Independent
5/12 Middlesbrough
A queue to keep going, into the night, further into 2019 before sleeping. Vape rises distinctly, a new sight on the street in the last few years, bringing atmospheric emissions to the image. There’s sweat and purpose and promise
Richard Morgan/The Independent
6/12 Middlesbrough
I’m struck by this naming and shaming, by the identification of supposed disloyalty, clearly marking the public space of the city for all to see, whether they care or not, whether they know or not
Richard Morgan/The Independent
7/12 Hartlepool
A view from inside the Market Hall, looking out, onto another person sitting on the street and another person faced with the experience of walking by. Both lower their heads, as if in acknowledgement of the difficulty of the situation
Richard Morgan/The Independent
8/12 Hartlepool
I walk to the end of a long jetty by the marina. Fisherman stand at the furthest tip, waiting for a bite, looking to the horizon where faint puffs of smoke appear and vanish from factories further down the east coast
Richard Morgan/The Independent
9/12 Seaham
Dwelling spaces of the dead and the living, closer than usual, occupying the same public space, both observable in one view, the burial ground of the local church acting as a garden for the housing estate behind
Richard Morgan/The Independent
10/12 Sunderland
A walk by the River Wear is comically framed from the Wearmouth Bridge, a view unavailable to the couple, who probably have no idea they’re walking into shot. Some things just cannot be appreciated at ground level and can only be seen from above
Richard Morgan/The Independent
11/12 Sunderland
Somebody once wrote this on a wall. That’s all. But now it’s part of the scene, part of the view, part of the experience of walking up High Street West into town. It’s tiny and anonymous, but noticeable and affecting
Richard Morgan/The Independent
12/12 Sunderland
Three elements of the city: a flapping pigeon; an austere grey tower block; purchasable sex
Richard Morgan/The Independent
It is a reminder, were one needed, and another reason why a no-deal Brexit on 29 March would be a catastrophe not only for the UK but for those states that do rely on Britain as an old and reliable market, back from the days when they were colonies and their economies sometimes distorted to fit with British imperial needs.
Some, though, are too big to bully. Richer countries, including Canada, Australia, Switzerland, Norway, Japan and South Korea, have the power to withstand what passes for British pressure. There has been an assumption, far too lazy, that the existing trade agreements via the EU will be simply copied and pasted into a fresh treaty with the UK. These counties are wise to this, and can spot the opportunity to push the UK into deals that are more advantageous than the ones they enjoy with the EU. No ties of history or sentiment, and not even Commonwealth loyalties, will make much difference to the hard commercial imperative of getting the best for their respective economies.
In all of this there is also the fact that Mr Fox’s department is still woefully short of expertise. Partly this is because Britain has had no need of its own trade officials for almost half a century. It is also, though, because the department has proved so successful at recruiting the brightest and the best negotiators from overseas – importing them, in fact. This might also have something to do with the caps on public sector salaries, but it leaves Britain at a further severe disadvantage.
The facts of international trading life are clear: a no-deal Brexit on 29 March would leave Britain struggling to import what it needs to survive, and to export what it needs to earn a living in the world. Goods and services are equally affected. It is why Brexit has to be paused, at the least, and subjected to a proper audit. The UK-EU trade and security treaty exists as no more than a vague political declaration; there are few replacement trade treaties with other partners; and even the UK-EU withdrawal agreement cannot be ratified. It has gone too far. There needs to be some pause for reflection, and reconsideration.
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