Pacific trade deal no match for EU benefits, PM told

Sir Keir Starmer has been urged to “get serious” about boosting the economy and to forge closer links with the EU, as the UK prepares to formally join a partnership of Asia-Pacific countries that the PM once said would yield “very small” benefits.

- KATE DEVLIN

Rishi Sunak’s government predicted that the post-Brexit trade deal would grow the economy by a tiny 0.08 per cent but it later emerged that even that may be an overestimate, according to the government’s own documents.

After failing to secure its original objective of a Brexit trade deal with the United States, the Tory government presented joining the Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for TransPacific Partnership (CPTPP) as a flagship agreement and a major benefit of leaving the European Union. Last year, while still in opposition, Sir Keir warned that the benefits would be “very small”.

At the time, the Labour leader added that it was “good to have a new trade deal, but better to have a closer relationship with the EU to go alongside it”.