UK is not match fit to negotiate world trade deals after years in EU, New Zealand claims

Britain is like a faded cricket side being thrust on to the pitch for the Ashes, says deputy PM

BRITAIN resembles a cricketer who has not played in 30 years taking the field in the Ashes as it tries to negotiate trade deals, New Zealand’s deputy prime minister said yesterday.

New Zealand has blamed Britain for slow progress towards a free trade deal and accused it of not being “match fit” for international negotiations.

British officials are in formal trade talks with the European Union, Japan, New Zealand, Australia and the United States and they are racing to finalise as many deals as possible before the end of the Brexit transition period on Dec 31.

Winston Peters, New Zealand’s deputy prime minister, said he was “very frustrated” with the progress made on a post-brexit agreement with Britain.

“We just need the British to realise that you can do more than one deal at a time,” he said.

Mr Peters blamed the UK’S 47-year membership of the EU for it not being ready to pursue multiple trade deals around the world at once.

The European Commission trade deals on behalf of the whole bloc, which means the UK has not arranged a trade deal since it joined the forerunner of the EU in 1973.

New Zealand, which is also in formal trade negotiations with the EU, negotiates its own trade agreements rather than as a bloc with other countries.

Mr Peters said: “We’ve had to look offshore for a long time and so we are seriously match fit when it comes to that, in a way that I don’t believe that the UK is, because the UK has been locked up in the EU all these years.

“In terms of their trading skills and finesse and their firepower − without being critical, they’ve never had an outing lately.

negotiates “They’ve never had a test, so to speak. It’s like coming into an Ashes contest when you haven’t played for 30 years − it’s the same thing in the UK when it comes to this.

“Here we are out here in the South Pacific, ourselves and Australia, and we believe we’re totally match fit and ready to go.”

Boris Johnson has previously compared the challenge of negotiating simultaneous trade deals around the world to a game of “three-dimensional chess”.

Once the transition period finishes at the end of the year, the UK will fall out of the EU’S trade deals with countries such as Japan. Failure to agree a trade deal with the EU and rollover agreements with countries that have EU trade deals will mean the UK dealing with them on less lucrative World Trade Organisation terms, which involve quotas and tariffs.

Mr Peters’s comments come after it emerged that talks on a Uk-japan trade deal had hit a snag over the tariffs on exports of Stilton cheese.

The Department for International Trade said yesterday that talks with the US would continue “at pace” after the third round of trade talks ended. The US does not have a trade deal with the EU. A second round of trade talks with New Zealand is planned for October after initial negotiations last month.

Negotiations with the EU, the market for almost half of UK exports, resume in Brussels next week.