Trade Tuesday: UK’s foreign and trade policy is at a crossroads as we head into election season

As only a few more warm months stand between us and Party Conference season, we can see some of the fault lines emerging on how parties should handle future challenges across all policy areas – foreign and trade policy are no different.   

About 16 months from a general election, the Labour Party in particular is looking to make its pitch on how the UK should be seen on the world stage. The recent week’s 24-hour news channels pictures showing tanks in Rostov-on-Don make this even more imperative as voters are virtually being asked to picture PM Keir Starmer in the classic flag and fireplace frames.  

It didn’t help, therefore, that Shadow Secretary of State for Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Affairs David Lammy – somehow the de facto Trade spokesperson rather than his International Trade Spokesperson counterpart – had to be reigned in following accusations voiced to media that Labour was looking to overturn Brexit.  

The Labour leader had to reiterate again, he ruled out rejoining the single market or customs union. Labour explained their plan was also to send more diplomats into emerging markets, something they call “launching a new economic diplomacy”.    

Lammy had been misunderstood after voicing the party’s aim to “negotiating new trade and security terms with Brussels” and Starmer had to explain the plan was much more pragmatic than that in dealing with the EU: looking at a veterinary agreement, reduced checks on food, equivalency agreements, mutual recognition of qualifications, scrapping some visas for professionals etc – all fairly sensible technocratic stuff.  

And it seems both parties agree this is the right thing to do, as the current Conservative government also looks to tackle some of the residual Brexit challenges: Jeremy Hunt, Chancellor of the Exchequer, today signed an agreement on financial services cooperation, establishing an ongoing forum for the UK and the EU to discuss voluntary regulatory cooperation on financial services issues.  

Meanwhile, the SMMT raises concerns over the tightening of trade rules from January on vehicles exported from the UK to the EU asking for government to avoid a “cliff edge” in January and agreeing on an EU delay until 2027. 

And so the post-Brexit fork in the road opens up nicely again, illustrating the competing priorities for any future government quite nicely: Resolving headaches caused by exiting the EU as an ongoing and evolving project on the one hand, while looking to tackle some of the global challenges of the future around tech, innovation, supply-chains and security with allies across the globe on the other. 

Research from LSE on England’s competing world views boast some key lines, such as: On those with identities which are more “English not British” versus “more British than English” “all identities give the UK’s relationships with India and China lower priority than those with Australia, the Commonwealth and the USA” meaning “the government’s Integrated Review of Foreign Policy priority to engagement with the Indo-Pacific region, is not yet reflected in the world view of England’s voters.” Moreover “the more English groups giving the lowest priority to reducing EU trade barriers and higher priority to preventing foreign ownership of British businesses and public services, with sharper differences marked by the Leave-Remain divide.”   

As the EU’s own Eurobarometer published last week shows “80% of Europeans believe that Member States should collaborate more to advance the access to digital technologies, as well to spur innovation and for companies to be globally competitive”, the UK political leaders have to set up their stall about how they will look to foster diplomatic and trading ties that can withstand the test of time.