UK-Japan Trade Deal - Sign It Or Else

Our Government of happy Brexiteers has received good news and bad news this week. The good news is that a new, proud, independent and sovereign UK has a trade deal with Japan ready to go. The bad news is that, just to underscore the UK’s lesser status as a former EU member state, it’s not as good a deal as the EU-Japan one we could have had if we’d remained in the EU. And it is the Japanese who are dictating terms.

How different it all was earlier this year: in February, the Mail told readers “British Foreign Secretary Dominic Raab and his Japanese counterpart agreed Saturday to seek an 'ambitious, high standard' trade accord matching Japan's agreement with the European Union”. No need to worry, we would do just as well outside the EU.

And last month, the Murdoch Sun announced that “TRADE talks with Japan will begin within days after the UK published its negotiating objectives tonight. Trade Secretary Liz Truss said Britain’s textiles, clothing and professional and financial services industries will be the biggest winners of a bumper free trade deal with Japan”. Brexit? No problem!

But now grim reality has arrived, as the Independent has reported. “Japan has given Britain just six weeks to sign up to a post-Brexit trade deal or face disruption to its imports and exports”. Sign up by the end of July, take it or leave it. And there was more.

“In the latest sign that the ‘swashbuckling’ drive to sign deals with countries around the world is proving less than straightforward, the UK could lose favourable access to Japanese markets it enjoyed as part of EU membership if no agreement is signed. UK negotiators also face the prospect of being bounced into a deal on unfavourable terms, as countries like Japan seek to use the reopening of talks to gain further concessions against the UK”. And the deal will not be as good as the EU-Japan one.

“Like some other countries with EU trade deals, Japan has declined to simply roll over its existing agreement for the UK after Brexit and has instead reopened talks”. And the reason for the haste? "Japanese negotiators this week piled extra pressure on Boris Johnson by accelerating the schedule for a deal, citing a lack of time in their parliamentary calendar”.

As the Tweeter known as Irishmonk has put it, “It is rather the EU-JPN deal with good bits for UK stripped out. Liz Truss and Raab are in trouble here. Japanese don't say ‘6 weeks’ and not mean it … They are deeply hurt by disingenuous behaviour and dislike being misled (as they have been by Britgov). They remain, at all times, pragmatic. They see a weak UK … They see UK-JPN as a minor deal if UK is no longer a gateway to Europe”.

Moreover, “Japan has become increasingly exasperated with Britgov ‘playing games’ and has referred back to its clear and concise missive much as EU finds itself constantly having to refer back to UK promises in its political declaration”. Which means that what Japan is imposing on the UK now, the EU will do very much the same thing.

We would, so the propaganda went, be free to strike whatever trade deals we liked, on our own terms. The reality is that we are free only to be told to bend over and sign on the dotted line, or else. It will be the same with the USA, too. That’s out new-found freedom.

You believe congenital liars like Bozo, you end up getting screwed. No change there, then.

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