DAILY MAIL COMMENT: Finally, a trade deal to unlock Brexit’s full potential

It has always been a shibboleth of the Remain establishment that anyone who voted to leave the EU must be a deluded ‘Little Englander’.

Suspicious of foreigners at best, xenophobic at worst, not too bright and harking back to a bygone age of British global supremacy.

This characterisation is deeply insulting to more than half the population. It is also utter drivel. 

What these sneering Remainers fail to understand is that the Brexit voters’ grievance was not with Europe or Europeans, but with the overweening power of Brussels to dictate their lives.

The referendum vote was about regaining sovereignty and control of our own laws and borders from what is fast becoming a bureaucratic super-state.

Typically, the BBC, never missing an opportunity to deride Brexit, used dubious figures to suggest the pact would have a minimal short-term effect on UK GDP. Writing in the Mail today, Trade Secretary Kemi Badenoch rightly castigates the Corporation, describing its approach as ‘myopic’

Far from being any sort of retrenchment or pulling up of the drawbridge, it has enabled us to look confidently out to the wider world.

While still trading with Europe on the friendliest terms possible, we can now seek new friendships and alliances beyond its shores.

This newspaper was at the forefront of the Brexit campaign and while we have at times been disappointed in the lack of ambition shown by our politicians, we remain convinced of its almost limitless potential. 

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And yesterday’s news that the UK has struck a deal to join an 11-nation Trans-Pacific trade pact, including Canada, Australia, Mexico and Malaysia, is a shining example of what can be achieved.

It is the first major shift away from a stagnating Europe, towards some of the world’s dynamic, growing economies.

It is exactly what Brexit was meant to be about. Between them, the countries involved generate 13 per cent of the world’s income and have a population of half a billion (larger than the EU). 

Other nations are expected to join in the years to come, adding to the pact’s already massive clout.

Typically, the BBC, never missing an opportunity to deride Brexit, used dubious figures to suggest the pact would have a minimal short-term effect on UK GDP.

Writing in the Mail today, Trade Secretary Kemi Badenoch rightly castigates the Corporation, describing its approach as ‘myopic’. 

As ever, it completely misses the point. This deal is not just about today or tomorrow, it’s about Britain’s global future. If we are to stimulate growth, we must stimulate trade.

We are world leaders in all manner of cutting-edge technologies, financial and professional services and a host of creative industries. The countries we have struck or hope to strike free-trade deals with can provide vast untapped new markets.

As Mrs Badenoch points out, by 2030, the Indo-Pacific region will be home to half the world’s middle-class consumers – some 2.3billion potential customers. ‘We’re getting in early,’ she says.

Another barbed question raised by Remainers yesterday was, what was the point of Britain leaving the EU if we are going to jump straight into another trading bloc? 

The answer to that is that the Trans-Pacific Partnership doesn’t have a flag, a parliament, foreign embassies or a central bank and doesn’t want to suck us ever deeper into a social and political union.

To use a late lamented phrase, it sees itself as a common market, rather than some grandiose and flawed political project. And of course, this new deal is in addition to our free-trade agreement with Brussels, not in place of it.

But the eurozone is expected to grow by less than one per cent this year, with France in political turmoil and even the economic powerhouse of Germany teetering on the brink of recession.

Looking further afield is not merely a choice, it’s a necessity.

To quote Mrs Badenoch: ‘Today, we have opened a new era for this country as a trading nation.’ Amen to that!

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