Government’s ‘ideological’ approach to Brexit trade deals condemned by senior Tory

Former Cabinet minister George Eustice says too much has been given away in the name of free trade

Former Environment Secretary George Eustice (James Manning/PA) (PA Wire)

A former Conservative cabinet minister has criticised the government's "ideological" approach to signing Brexit trade deals.

George Eustice, who served as environment secretary under Boris Johnson, said ministers and officials gave too much away in trade talks without getting much in return.

The Tory MP made the comments during a candid interview about his time in government, conducted by the Institute for Government think-tank.

Mr Eustice, who left government when Liz Truss took over as prime minister, last year branded the trade deal with Australia – largely negotiated by Ms Truss – as a failure.

But speaking to the IfG this year he said there was "a wider problem within the government and within the Conservative Party in general".

"While there was quite a bit of sensitivity for agricultural interests, there was a stronger feeling about the ideological benefits of free trade," he said.

Mr Eustice said he had argued "that we should be seeking a reciprocal trade deal" where "yes, we would give away access, but we would be granted something in return".

Instead, he said, he would "endlessly" come up against "what could best be described as a rather ideological stance, which just held that we should just liberalise".

"Treasury officials were quite strongly of the view that tariffs were protectionist – that we should just scrap them all," he said.

After Britain left the EU customs union it lost access to the European Union's trade deals with other countries, but became able to sign its own agreements.

But farmers and trade campaigners have criticised the government's approach to signing and negotiating these deals.

The deals signed by the UK tend to allow overseas farmers to export products to the UK produced at lower cost and to different welfare standards without paying tariffs – which British farmers say will drive them out of business.

The government's own analyses of the deals says their overall economic benefits tend to be extremely small – and that in some cases the will shrink domestic UK industries like farming.

However more recently government ministers like Trade Secretary Kemi Badenoch have argued that the government's own calculations do not capture all the benefits of the deals.

Mr Eustice said that there were discussions in government about the best approach to negotiations but that he and Michael Gove – who he said shared his view – were "outnumbered" by other ministers like Liz Truss.

"He felt very much that taking back control meant standing up for yourself on the world stage. And we were sadly outnumbered," the former environment secretary said.

The ex environment secretary said that while he had a good relationship with Ms Truss when they worked together at Defra, but that "from the moment she was a frontrunner, I pretty much assumed it would be the end for me".

"We’d had such disagreements over the Australia trade agreement that I knew there was no prospect at all that she would want me to stay there," he added.

Mr Eustice, who is still a Tory MP, said in January he would not stand again at the next general election.