Ross Clark

countries – something which we are currently forbidden from doing. When we start to do so we will soon find that the EU is not quite the champion of free trade which Nick Clegg and his fellow Remoaners claim.

Clegg’s claim that the price of chocolate will rise ignores the 30 per cent tariffs which the EU imposes on processed cocoa products from outside the EU. There is no reason, post-Brexit, why a British government should continue to levy such a high tax. It doesn’t just hurt British consumers, it is harming low-income countries by keeping their chocolate – which could be one of their main industries – out of European markets. The only reason for such tariffs is to protect European chocolate-makers from competition.

It is the same with many agricultural products. The EU preaches free trade between European countries but then slaps punitive tariffs on goods from outside the EU. In the case of some tinned tropical fruit the tariffs are an astounding 146 per cent.

The Remoaners don’t really want free trade. In one breath they will claim that Brexit will lead to new tariffs and then in the next, like Ed Miliband, they start complaining that the Government is using Brexit as an excuse for a “Right wing,

CLEGG made one other claim about food prices – he said we would have to pay more in future as our food industry suffered “workforce shortages”. True, there are a lot of foreign workers employed picking fruit and processing food. But there is nothing in the Brexit vote that means we cannot continue to welcome migrant workers needed in certain industries.

All that Brexit means is that in future it will be our own, elected government in Westminster which makes the rules on migration, not an unelected commission in Brussels. We will be able again to reject benefit tourists, criminals and lowskilled workers in industries where there is no shortage of British recruits.

A paper leaked over the weekend seemed to suggest that the Government is considering a work permit scheme for skilled workers only. I can understand why food producers will be worried but when it comes to it the Government is not going to drive industries to the wall by denying work permits for much-needed staff.

There is just one group of British diners who definitely will lose out over Brexit. I have a suspicion that prior to the referendum Nick Clegg hoped David Cameron would send him for a lucrative new career as one of Britain’s European commissioners. How hard it must be to cope with the fact that a life of free lunches is no longer available to him.

‘Attempt to frighten us over rising prices’