Emily Thornberry gaffe: We can’t export food to Australia!

LABOUR’S Shadow Foreign Secretary invited ridicule yesterday by saying Britain’s food industry will struggle to export to Australia post- Brexit because its products ‘will go off’.

Emily Thornberry voiced concerns over how the UK will forge new trade links with major Commonwealth countries once it leaves the European single market and customs union.

She said farmers might struggle to export to nations beyond the EU because of the much longer distances involved, telling a hustings: ‘We need to be hard-headed about this. The truth is the majority of our trade takes place with the European Union. And things like our food industry, you can’t export it to Australia – it will go off.’

But food is routinely exported from one end of the world to the other.

Tory candidate Neil Parish said: ‘These comments would be funny, but it is no laughing matter that Jeremy Corbyn and Emily Thornberry could be negotiating Brexit just 11 days after polling day. If they don’t think we can export food around the world, they would make an absolute meal of the Brexit negotiations.’