Global Britain can prosper through free trade

It is vital to remember that the UK is a rich country despite the protectionist EU, not because of it

As a former Australian Prime Minister, my role is not to negotiate trade deals for Britain. Instead, as someone who helped to finalise deals with my country’s biggest trade partners – China, Japan and Korea – and as an adviser to the Board of Trade, my role is to champion trade, knowing that the more you trade, the more you prosper.

Almost 50 years ago, Australia went through its own trade shock, losing preferential access to markets when Britain joined what was then called the European Economic Community. We coped because we produced what people wanted to buy. Obviously there were some adjustments, but essentially the Australian products that Britons had previously bought, at a good price, were then bought by others at the best price we could get for them.

No one could really say that Australia suffered in the long term from Britain joining a protectionist trade bloc. In fact, Britain’s intention to join the then-common Market changed our mental horizons and spurred the developments that are now the foundation of our prosperity.

You see, Britain is not a rich country because of the EU. Rather, because the EU placed restrictions on Britain’s economic freedom, you could almost say that Britain is a rich country despite the EU. Brexit isn’t about ending free trade with the EU – which Britain wants to keep – but ending the restraints on Britain’s ability to trade more freely with other countries, such as Australia.

The aim should always be to trade high quality goods and services freely almost everywhere, and for highly qualified people to work for high salaries almost anywhere. In other words, what was previously possible only within the EU should become possible with other countries around the world that have broadly comparable living standards.

Our objective should always be to make trade more free, because people (and countries) doing what they’re best at is the way to maximise everyone’s wealth, but to make trade freest of all with the countries we’re most like.

Between Britain and Australia, for instance, the aim should be a swift deal providing free movement of goods without tariffs or quotas, mutual recognition of standards and qualifications, and free movement of people for work at high wages, not welfare.

If British consumers would like

Australian lamb, for example, why shouldn’t they be able to get it at the best price; and if Australian consumers would like British cars, why shouldn’t they be able to get them at the best price – without tariffs, that are a tax on consumers, or quotas, that interfere with consumer choice? If Australian doctors want to work in the NHS, or if British lawyers want to work in Australian courts, why shouldn’t they be able to do so, provided they’re not undercutting locals’ wages?

I’ve never had British sparkling wine, but it must be good at £30-plus a bottle. Most of you won’t have had Tasmanian whisky, but it’s very good indeed – and needs to be, at up to Aus$400 (£221) a bottle. Making it cheaper and easier to get those products, as a consequence of much more economic engagement between Britain and Australia with fully free trade the goal, can’t be bad for anyone.

Maybe a British lawyer in a New South Wales court might need to work under supervision for a few months to learn our practice rules and maybe an Australian electrician in a British factory might need a bit of time to get used to different wiring systems. But given the way British and Australian people think, and given the way British and Australian governments operate, claims that one country or the other might want to mistreat its animals, poison its people or despoil the environment are unlikely to stack up, and can easily become a smokescreen for those who would rather not change and innovate.

That said, if British law says you can’t sell chickens washed in chlorinated water, chlorine-washed chicken won’t come into Britain, regardless of any trade deal. Though trade deals foster innumerable voluntary economic partnerships, they need not and should not seek to change countries’ domestic law. Australia, for instance, did not change – and never would have changed – our scheme for affordable medicines, even though American pharmaceutical firms didn’t like it, in order to get a trade deal with the United States.

Historically, Britain has always welcomed goods, people, ideas and capital. Britons have had a robust sense of their capacity to do things well and to learn from anyone who might be able to do better. That’s why Britain has made such an extraordinary and unique contribution to the world: the mother of parliaments, the world’s common language, the industrial revolution and the emancipation of minorities.

That’s why Global Britain should be able to do more for the world, and for itself, than a Britain that had to double-check things with Brussels.