Australia has approached Britain for post-Brexit free trade deal talks. As you might imagine, all the little Brexiters have taken time off from nailing Union Jacks to their houses and learning naughty new words to say to immigrants, and added their input.
Reality check:
- Australia is the 12th/13th largest economy in the world
- its GDP is half that of the UK
- more than 60% of its exports currently go to non-EU (and non-UK) countries
- Australia could already export to Britain if it wanted to
- Britain could already import from Australia if it wanted to
- both of the above already happen
- a free trade deal created explicitly as a result of Brexit would require lower import duties to be applied to make it worthwhile, which would cost the UK economy money
- well, it would cost the economy money if we were likely to import anything like enough of anything we actually wanted from Australia
- all the stuff we really need is either in the EU, or in countries who trade heavily with the EU
- the UK doesn’t produce anything which other countries can’t get cheaper from elsewhere (except for kitsch like Cornish pasties and Devon Toffee)
- the EU is a little over 20 miles away from the UK, and is connected by road/rail – it takes about half an hour to get there, and costs a few hundred GBP in fuel per lorry at the most
- Australia is almost 9,500 miles away – it takes at least a full day to get there by air (at a fuel cost of about £5,000-£10,000 per hour), or a month by sea (using thousands of gallons of low grade diesel per hour, and emitting more pollution than several million cars)
- the average Brexiter probably needs it explaining to them that these costs to the UK of importing stuff apply equally to the Aussies if they import from us (notwithstanding the plummeting value of the GBP)
No disrespect to Australia, but a trade deal with them would have a symbolic meaning only. It would be a “Brexit deal”. And let’s not forget the old saying about all your eggs in one basket – if we started to rely on Aussie imports, they’d be calling the shots against a country only a few per cent of its exports went to.
Cutting loose economically from Europe and turning to Australia would be about the same as cutting off your leg, sending it to Sydney, and expecting to still be able to play football!