MPs highlight Britain’s post-Brexit trade deals – but there’s a sting in the tail

MPs on the international trade committee fear the UK’s trade deal with New Zealand could damage our farming industry and compromise food security. They are right to raise these issues, writes James Moore

MPs fear these New Zealand sheep will take a bite out of Britain’s farming industry (Getty/iStock)

Let’s talk Brexit, or rather, the benefits we were told would flow from it by its now discredited architects.

The Conservative government maintained that it would make up for surrendering membership of the European single market by securing a bevy of exciting new trade deals with other countries.

In practice, such successes have proved hard to find. The prospect of an agreement with the US, once put forward as the greatest post-Brexit prize, has all but vanished, while Suella Braverman complicated a pending deal with India by lashing out at its proposed increase in work and study visas for Indian nationals (people the skills-starved UK economy could surely use, but never mind).