Boris Johnson has been accused of causing “embarrassment” for Britain after blundering into a £10bn trade deal concession with Australia in farcical scenes.
Over a chaotic dinner in No 10 in early 2021, an Australian official is reported to have cobbled together an agreement over meat import quotas on his way to the loo, which he rushed to get Mr Johnson to sign before the final course.
Liz Truss, who at the time was serving as international trade secretary and later tried to unpick the deal, is said to have been told later: “Your boss has conceded the whole kingdom.”
Darren Jones, the chair of the Commons business and trade committee, said the events would “make our professional trade negotiators weep … this is just an embarrassment”.
And David Henig, a leading trade expert who helped set up the government’s Department for International Trade after the 2016 Brexit vote, told The Independent that, under Mr Johnson, the UK had begun to be seen as a “soft touch”.
The scenes, first reported by Politico, were even picked up internationally. Former US trade official Wendy Cutler said it underscored the detailed nature of trade talks and the “danger” of having “one’s leader at the head of the table”.
The deal saw the then prime minister agree to measure beef imports by the weight of only cuts of meat, rather than the entire cow, which is much heavier – effectively signing off a massive increase in how much meat Australia can send to Britain, it is alleged.
Apparently realising that the deal was too good to be true, Australian high commissioner George Brandis scrawled down the unexpected bonus and fled to the loo. On the way, he gave the piece of paper to an aide to hurriedly scan and turn into a trade document – before it was returned to the dinner table for Mr Johnson to sign.
In an extraordinary move, Mr Johnson is said to have told the Australian delegates, who included the country’s prime minister, that he had agreed to the deal because he wanted to apologise to Australia for Britain’s decision to join the EU 50 years ago.
A furious Ms Truss was reportedly told by the gleeful Australians that her boss, Mr Johnson, had already “given away the kingdom”, according to a former minister involved in the talks.
Britain’s post-Brexit trade deal with Australia has long been controversial. It has been condemned as a sell-out by British farmers, while former environment secretary George Eustice has said the government “gave away far too much for far too little in return”.
A spokesperson for Mr Johnson said the Politico report was “total nonsense”, but the website said it had spoken to five senior people involved in the negotiations on either side.
One former adviser to Ms Truss told the publication he did not think Mr Johnson was across the detail, adding that the dinner “was very slapdash – and ultimately ended up giving more on beef”.
Advisers said Ms Truss had wanted the talks to be reopened – but Australian PM Scott Morrison had threatened to “tell the media the UK was going back on its first post-Brexit trade deal”.
Alexander Downer, who was Australia’s high commissioner until 2018, defended the deal and said the weights issue was a “minor detail” among the benefits that would be provided by the agreement.
But Mr Henig said the report of chaotic negotiations with the Australian delegation “obviously doesn’t look good for the UK”, adding: “Under Johnson, our reputation was that we’d sign anything, as evidenced by the deals with the EU and Australia.”
Labour said the “chaos and absurdity” had let down British businesses, and farmers in particular. Shadow international trade secretary Nick Thomas-Symonds said the government had a “terrible record on trade negotiations. Either delivering bad deals or no deals at all.”
He continued: “Rishi Sunak has admitted as much, calling their Australian deal ‘one-sided’, whilst the former Defra secretary says ‘The UK gave away far too much for far too little in return.’ The chaos and absurdity of the Conservatives has badly let down British businesses, especially our farmers.”
UK government lawyers reportedly continued to quibble with the Australian side over beef import weights until the deal was signed in December 2021.
Some degree of compromise was achieved by making sure the agricultural safeguard – designed to slow imports after 10 years if there is a rapid surge – used the carcass weight equivalents initially stipulated by British officials.
The post-Brexit deal, which came into force this week, is forecast to boost bilateral trade between the countries by around £10bn a year by 2035. But farmers remain angry at the generosity of tariff-free quota access given to Australian beef.
The president of the National Farmers’ Union (NFU), Minette Batters, said the concessions were “a real breach of trust and confidence for farmers”, adding: “The anger is still visceral.”
A spokesperson for the NFU added: “We know the government gave away much more than they needed to, and this illustrates it.”
International trade minister Nigel Huddleston told farmers earlier this week that the government had “got their backs” and there were safeguards in place to prevent the British market from being “flooded” with produce from Australia and New Zealand.
