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This is the second part of a new FT series, Brexit: The Next Phase
When the UK signed its first major post-Brexit trade deal with Australia last summer, then trade secretary (and later prime minister) Liz Truce declared it a “win-win” that would improve tariffs, lower prices and choice.
But a year and a half after that joyous announcement, the trade agreement has been criticized by a range of politicians and officials who believe mistakes were made in the push to secure a UK-Australia deal signed by the culmination of the G7 summit in June 2021. .
With Rishi Sunak now pledging a more patient approach to signing deals – including membership of the Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership – with India, trade groups and trade experts are warning that the UK must be more strategic when cutting future deals. , while also doing more to garner public support at home for international trade.
Brexit: The next phase

Brexit and the Economy: Hits have been ‘significantly negative’
• UK-Australia trade deal: “Much for very little”
• Part 3: Has business found its voice on Brexit?
• Part 4: Politics and Brexit: Fear of the ‘B’ word
According to multiple senior Whitehall officials, the Australia trade deal was rushed through due to the tight political deadlines set by Truce, along with a lack of negotiating skills and experience. “We were trying to move too fast without taking enough care,” said a senior government official.
The result was a deal that experts believe was tilted in Australia’s direction – and particularly beneficial to its farming industry – because of its desire to get the first major post-Brexit deal on the line. George Eustice, the former environment secretary, admitted last month that the deal “gave too much for too little”.
As well as 71 rollover agreements that maintained existing trading relationships with many countries, Australia was set as the initial target for the first “from scratch” deals – along with Japan and New Zealand – by Liam Fox, the first post-Brexit trade secretary. .
When Truce arrived at the newly established post-Brexit Department for International Trade in July 2019, she was keen to hammer out a deal with Canberra to demonstrate the benefits of leaving the EU.

Sheep auction in Cumbria. Farmers are worried about the potential impact of the UK’s trade deal with Australia © Alamy Stock Photo
Economically, the deal was of very modest value – just 0.08 percent of GDP growth by 2035, according to the government’s own initial estimates – but symbolically it was a big prize for Brexiters seeking concrete evidence of the pulling power of a “global Britain”. .
According to DIT insiders, Truce’s arrival put a “rocket booster” on the Australia negotiations. In a harbinger of an approach that would later be seen during his brief, disastrous tenure as prime minister, the business secretary sought to “move fast and break things”, according to one civil servant.
But the National Farmers Union slammed the agreement as a “one-sided” deal that gave Australian growers too much access to the UK market for too little in return – something Eustice later acknowledged in a letter to then-prime minister Boris Johnson. By Financial Times.
“We cannot risk another outcome like Australia where the value of the UK agri-food market access offer was almost double what we got in return,” Eustice wrote last June, warning Johnson not to repeat the same mistake in negotiations with India.
Eustice told the then Prime Minister in his letter that the Cabinet Office had previously agreed to Whitehall safeguards that enabled the DIT to push back on ministers from other departments if they made concessions deemed too deep.
Of particular concern to British farmers was the government’s decision to ignore NFU lobbying to ensure that beef and lamb quotas are based on “carcass weight equivalent”, which calculates quotas including skin, bone and blood, effectively reducing size. is
The NFU said the deal with Australia also left open the possibility that Australian producers could send container-loads of quality cuts – steaks and joints – which could quickly distort the UK market for high-end products.
Although the effects are difficult to predict immediately, the deal puts the UK at risk of sudden changes in Australian export policy if Canberra is pushed out of other major markets such as China, according to NFU trade director Nick von Westenholz.
“The UK government has almost no recourse to manage imports if they start to prove detrimental to UK farming livelihoods,” von Westenholz said.
To rein in the government, the NFU launched a petition calling for greater protection for farmers and UK food standards. It won the endorsement of celebrity chef Jamie Oliver and received over one million signatures.
Environmental and animal welfare lobby groups are now pressing the government over future deals, demanding that it maintain a “level playing field” for food and animal welfare standards in post-Brexit trade deals in a letter to new trade secretary Cammy Badenoch last October.
Business groups are also demanding that parliament have more powers over ratification and consent orders to ministers for future trade deals.
While farmers have not yet felt the ill effects of the Australian trade deal, they are well aware of its potential to disrupt their markets. They are also dealing with other Brexit-related concerns, including an overhaul of farm subsidies, border delays for paperwork and stricter, time-consuming checks on exported animal products.

Officials working on the UK-Australia trade deal insist its benefits will emerge in the medium term. “You put this deal in perspective, it was taken as part of a broader approach that included stabilizing our EU relationship, stabilizing trade relationships with a whole range of other countries,” said a government insider.
Another argues that the geopolitical impact of the agreement was important. “Australia is a very significant economy – they are members of the Five Eyes and have respect for the rule of law. Once in place this deal will permanently add £2.5bn to the UK economy, £900mn in UK wages that would not have existed and half a billion on trade in services. .Australians will benefit but we will benefit proportionately more.
DIT said the Australia agreement would “unlock” £10bn of new bilateral trade. “We have always said we will not compromise the UK’s high environmental, animal welfare or food safety standards and this deal includes a range of safeguards to support British farmers,” it said in a statement.
DIT officials and ministers also say privately that they are keen to learn the lessons of the deal with Australia and avoid similar mistakes in future trade agreements – including the agreement with India and membership of the CPTPP, which Sunak has prioritized.
But Sam Lowe, trade policy partner at Flint Global, warned that Australia’s rush to conclude a deal had eroded public confidence in trade policy and set unhelpful precedents for future negotiations.
“The key lesson . . . is for the government to remember that you always need to look over your shoulder when cutting these deals, because cutting an unpopular deal now makes future deals more difficult,” he said.
Lowe added that it was already possible to see the outcome of the Australia deal both at home – where the issue is playing on the doorstep of farming constituencies in south-west England – and in negotiations with other countries.
“The UK is currently renegotiating its bilateral deals with Canada and Mexico that came out of EU membership and negotiations have slowed down as Canada specifically seeks similar concessions on agriculture to those given to Australia,” he said.
Canada’s desire to take advantage of concessions during negotiations also played a role in the UK’s efforts to join the Pacific Trade Grouping, the CPTPP, which officials have admitted has now slipped into next year.
As well as CPTPP members such as Canada seeking concessions from the UK, they are also keeping an eye on China’s accession process, Lowe added, and are wary of granting UK membership without full compliance with group rules if it is taken. An example from Beijing.
According to Eustice’s letter to Johnson, the key lesson for the UK is not to rush future trade negotiations. “I know India is a tough negotiator but I firmly believe the UK should be too,” he wrote.
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