Why listen to a political has-been like Nick Clegg?
IT IS hard to remember that Nick Clegg was once seen as a breath of fresh air in British politics. His descent into an embittered has-been makes even the latter years of Sir Edward Heath’s career look productive.
At least Sir Edward stuck to railing against his nemesis Mrs Thatcher. Clegg can’t stop himself grumbling about the majority of the British electorate.
Having lost the EU referendum he is quite open about his attempts to frustrate the will of the people. In his mind he is justified because of the “mendacity” of the Leave campaign.
If you want mendacity there is no better example than Clegg’s attempts to frighten us into thinking that Brexit will lead to soaring food prices.
“Hard Brexit will lead us off a cliff edge towards higher food prices, with a triple whammy of punishing tariffs, customs and workforce shortages,” he said in a paper published yesterday. Consumers, he claims, will face paying tariffs of 59 per cent on beef, 40 per cent on New Zealand lamb and 38 per cent on chocolate.
Tariffs are taxes on imports, imposed by the country to which the goods are being imported. If the EU were to seek to punish Britain by imposing tariffs on goods we export to them – something which they are ultimately unlikely to do – that would hurt our farmers and food industry. But to claim that British consumers would be hit by paying more for New Zealand lamb is daft.
WHY should a British government, post Brexit, want to hurt British consumers by levying a huge tax on food imported from a country which is not even in the EU? What Clegg means is that the EU currently has a trade deal with New Zealand which allows lamb to be imported without high tariffs and that technically the arrangement will end when we leave the EU. But the Government will ensure that such agreements can continue. The idea that it will take years to renegotiate is silly – it will be a formality to carry over current arrangements with countries such as New Zealand.
What leaving the EU will allow us to do is to negotiate our trade deals with non-EU