David Henig is the Director of the UK Trade Policy Project at the European Centre for International Political Economy (ECIPE).  The Conservatives seriously proposed a Brexit with no deals with the EU. Since the UK-EU Trade and Cooperation Agreement (TCA) has been in place, the EU has said it can’t be reopened in any circumstance. Now Labour wants a reset but would prefer a quiet one that nobody really notices. What is it about the world’s second-largest trade relationship[i] that means it is talked down consistently? Similarly, an integrated UK and EU is surely crucial for European competitiveness and security, so why does neither side see this? Why the UK and EU need each other Most obviously, this is the ongoing aftermath of a divorce so messy that both parties simply want to pretend everything is now fine for them. Except, geography means the relationship can’t just be ended, not to mention a billion euros of annual trade, which is rather a lot of customers dependent on governments to help them. Then there’s Northern Ireland, which has already been called the unwanted child of a Brexit split. Not to mention, shared objectives for a transition to net-zero, and of course the [...]

22 May 2024 David Henig is Director of the UK Trade Policy Project at the European Centre for International Political Economy (ECIPE). He has written extensively on the development of UK Trade Policy post Brexit, in the context of developments in EU and global trade policy on which he also researches and writes. L. Alan Winters is Co-Director of the Centre for Inclusive Trade Policy (CITP) and former Director of the UKTPO. One of the most heralded claims for Brexit was taking back control of UK international trade policy. Four years later, this is not widely seen as having been a success. Trade growth has been disappointing, the UK has become less open, exporting is still heavily concentrated in the Southeast of England, and there is little trust in Government pronouncements on trade. And yet there is almost no coherent discussion of trade policy and no evident strategy guiding future policy objectives or the signature of new trade agreements. Part of the issue is that thinking about trade policy is trapped in the remnants of the Brexit debate and substantially seen in party political terms; it is consequently lacking any broadly accepted understanding. This is unsatisfactory and as part of [...]