How much will this deal compensate for the economic hit caused by Brexit?
The Tories and their enablers in the press are once more hailing Brexit freedoms today, as the government and Brexiteers congratulated themselves on an agreement to join an 11-member Asia-Pacific trade bloc.
Prime minister Rishi Sunak claiming it proved his government was seizing “post-Brexit freedoms”.
After two years of negotiating, the government has finally concluded talks on joining the Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership (CPTPP).
The CPTPP is a free trade agreement between 11 countries across the Indo-Pacific, including Australia, Brunei, Canada, Chile, Japan, Malaysia, Mexico, New Zealand, Peru, Singapore and Vietnam – and now the UK.
The government says that as a result of the partnership, trade barriers and tariffs between the countries will be reduced with the hope of bolstering the economies of its members.
Yet just how much will this deal compensate for the economic hit caused by Brexit?
According to the government’s own estimates, the CPTPP deal will increase UK gross domestic product by just 0.08 per cent over a decade. That amounts to £1.8bn. Slow hand clap for the government.
The OBR meanwhile estimates that the economic hit caused by Brexit to the UK economy will mean GDP is reduced by 4%.
Commenting on the government’s trade deal, one social media user wrote: “The notion that trade with the rest of the world could ever compensate for the trade we lost by leaving the EU was always Brexiter fantasy: CPTPP and it’s 0.08% – slow hand claps for the Gvt again.”
Another tweeted: “BREAKING NEWS: UK government leaves European bloc that contains almost every European country, including all neighbouring countries, to join a Pacific trading bloc for a predicted 0.08% trade gain.”
Basit Mahmood is editor of Left Foot Forward
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