Australia Deal

So Boris Johnson, not satisfied with allowing the Indian (aka Johnson) variant of Covid into the UK in pursuit of an Indian trade deal and delaying 'Freedom Day' (his words), has now negotiated an unscrutinised trade deal with Australia that allows hormone treated beef, produced cheaply on an industrial scale, to enter the UK market. In return, we can sell our higher welfare standard beef into the Australian market at a higher price - good luck with that one.

So much for fighting climate change, what with all the extra food miles that the UK and Australia exchanging a very similar product will produce. Why don't both parties just eat their own beef, rather than sending it, literally, half way round the world, always assuming there's actually a market for higher priced beef in Australia? It seems to be a very one-sided deal.

There are protections for UK farmers, allegedly, but no-one has enumerated these protections, as the deal hasn't been scrutinised in Parliament. That, suggests to me, there aren't any, although we know that tariffs will drop over a 15 year period, which will presumably allow farmers to get out of farming.

Some government flunky maintains British beef farmers will be able to take advantage of this fantastic deal by selling their superior quality beef into Australia. Now, either we're dropping food standards to allow Australian beef in in the first place (in which case our farmers will take advantage of that and follow suit in order to compete with foreign imports), or we're not dropping food standards in order to maintain our beef's quality (in which case Australian beef won't get in in the first place). Someone is telling beefies.

The government has estimated that the deal with Australia would be worth an additional 0.01-0.02 per cent of gross domestic product over 15 years, or £200m-£500m more than 2018 levels. I wonder if this includes the negatives of the effect on our own beef production - I suspect not, as they have a habit of only looking at the plus side of the equation and ignoring the negative. 

Well, that's going to do little to offset the 2.2% drop in GDP from Brexit for this year alone. 146 more of those and we'll actually catch up. That said, it's reported by the government that tractor production is at an all time high.... (that's a euphemism, by the way, and redolent of how the old USSR bigged up bad news).

You know, there's a very simple solution to the Northern Ireland impasse. That is the UK sticking to EU regulations on the foodstuffs causing the problem. Boris can't do that though, as he's boxed the UK into a corner and is hence desperate for trade deals that can only be won by lowering our food standards - Australian beef, American chicken, etc, etc. It's a race to the bottom.

The activities of this government of gentleman amateurs is unbelievable at the best of times. The economist, JK Galbraith, once said; "The modern conservative is constantly engaged in one of man's oldest exercises in moral philosophy; that is, the search for a superior moral justification for selfishness."