Boris and the Brexiteers are talking nonsense about Britain’s trade policies

Meet Boris Johnson, Britain’s new chief trade negotiator. I admit it is an effort to imagine Boris in that parish, haggling with dry regulators over technical barriers to trade like phytosanitary rules and mutual recognition of standards in nuclear engineering. Yet Boris has great aspirations for Britain’s future trade deals, and his gusto is certainly needed if the UK is to replace its current market integration with Europe. Yet relish for the Brexit cause hides neither his confounding story about Britain’s future in trade policy nor his obvious ignorance of the matter. Unfortunately, his fellow Brexiteers do little to suppress the suspicion that, on post-Brexit trade policy, they really have no idea what they are talking about.

First came the idea that Britain could emulate the new (yet unratified) trade agreement between Canada and the European Union for its post-Brexit trade arrangement with the EU. Boris seems to have set his eyes on duty-free trade, and if Canada could get such a deal with Europe, only ‘merchants of doom’ can come up with the silly idea that Britain couldn’t get it too.