Fox gives businessmen the buck-up they need to export to Uzbekistan

Labour’s plan to create a new customs union with the EU, declared Liam Fox, was “a complete sell-out”. It was “a betrayal of voters”. It would “endanger our long-term prosperity”, and hand Brussels “considerable control” of our trade policy, leaving us as powerless “rule-takers”. In short, he concluded, Labour’s proposal was “incoherent, inept and clueless”.

Harsh words, perhaps, given that it was a proposal previously made by Dr Fox himself. In 2012, he argued that “the best way forward for Britain” was to forge a new partnership with the EU “involving a customs union”.

During his speech in London yesterday, the International Trade Secretary did not mention that he used to advocate this policy. Maybe he’d simply forgotten. After all, if he’d remembered, he would surely have admitted it.

At any rate, Dr Fox has seen the light, and he wants everyone else to see it too – particularly any Tory MPS who might be tempted to vote with Labour. Outside a customs union, he explained, Britain would be far more prosperous. This was because we would strike deals “with the world’s fastest-growing economies”. He didn’t happen to say what the world’s fastest-growing economies were, but, for the record, in 2017 they were Ethiopia, Uzbekistan and Nepal. There was only one potential snag. What if British businesses failed to seize the opportunity to export to Ethiopia, Uzbekistan and Nepal? This, it seems, is a fear playing on Dr Fox’s mind, because after his speech he suggested some businessmen took a defeatist attitude to exporting outside the EU. They thought it was “too difficult”.

Therefore, he’d decided to give them the buck-up they needed. Across the country, he announced, he was going to display motivational posters, emblazoned with images of successful exporters – alongside the slogan, “If I Can, You Can Too!” It’s a prospect to make the heart sing. All those shy, defeatist businessmen, trudging glumly towards their offices – then seeing Dr Fox’s motivational poster, and feeling instantly galvanised. “Thank you, Liam Fox! You may never have run a business in your life, let alone one that exports successfully to Third World nations, but your motivational poster has convinced me that my toboggan factory can sell to Burundi!”

Earlier, a former official from Dr Fox’s department had said leaving the single market and customs union was like “giving up a three-course meal... for the promise of a packet of crisps”. Anti-brexit campaigners were so delighted with this line that they gathered outside the venue for the speech, handing out packets of crisps.

A journalist sought Dr Fox’s response. “The Brexit process,” he sniffed, “is a little more complex than a packet of Walkers.”

Maybe he could try making motivational posters for Remainers, encouraging them to do a U-turn on the customs union. “If I Can, You Can Too!”