EU has to talk trade

UNILEVER is the latest in a list of multinationals to drop plans for leaving the UK after Brexit. Its decision to stay where the money is comes in the week US drug giant Merck and German-Dutch technology company Qiagen unveiled plans to invest more than £1billion in Britain. Now the pessimistic OECD has been forced to upgrade its UK growth forecast for 2017, just a month after issuing its last one. Indeed, all the major forecasters – including the IMF and Bank of England – predict British growth will continue uninterrupted for the foreseeable future.

At the same time, Europe may stand to lose if it blocks a trade deal. Witness yesterday’s finding by an independent think-tank that 1.2million jobs will be lost on the Continent – more than twice as many as in Britain, with Ireland hardest hit – while 30milllion European insurance policies will be void without a deal for the City. No wonder the EU is suddenly keen to press on with trade talks.

Indeed, the UK has a hugely powerful negotiating hand. So how sickening that Labour’s Sir Keir Starmer is doing all he can to undermine it by demanding that the Government reveal all its cards to Brussels before trade talks begin.

If the shadow Brexit Secretary cares a fig for Britain’s future, he will learn from Europe’s own official negotiating handbook: ‘When entering into a game, no one starts by revealing his entire strategy to his counterpart from the outset.’ Meanwhile, we would do well to acknowledge another obvious truth, put bluntly by a US investment bank. In the words of Morgan Stanley, there is something ‘much more scary’ for the UK economy than the prospect of Brexit – a hard-Left Government under Jeremy Corbyn.