When people talk about the ways the Conservatives have squandered this parliament, and with it their first and best opportunity to demonstrate to voters the benefits of Brexit, they often focus on domestic concerns: the failure to tackle legacy EU red tape, or the lack of progress on levelling up. But one of the biggest disappointments of the past few years must be the United Kingdom’s dismal record on international trade.

Time and again the UK has walked away from transformative deals over trivial domestic hang-ups

Outside the bloc, Britain ought to have been in a good position to bolster our commercial relationships across the globe, losing the sheer mass of the European market but gaining the ability to move nimbly and strike deals to our economy and strengths, rather than those of a dozen or more EU Member States.

Instead, trade has simply become another arena for showcasing the shortcomings of our politicians. It’s true that Britain has signed agreements, not least with Australia in 2021 and New Zealand in 2022. But these have had a limited impact on Britain’s economy. And for all the sombre talk about the need for growth, time and again the UK has walked away from potentially transformative deals over trivial domestic hang-ups.

Some politicians are trying their best. Trade secretary Kemi Badenoch’s energetic efforts to strike deals with individual US states, for example, is at least an imaginative and proactive response to the failure to strike a proper agreement with America. Even though one was promised in the Conservatives’ 2019 manifesto, in 2023 Rishi Sunak admitted that reaching a deal ‘has not been a priority’. This despite our American trade being worth £315 billion at the end of 2023.

There are excellent foundations for a much stronger partnership. We are the single largest European investor to the US, worth half a trillion dollars in 2019. UK firms employ 1.3 million Americans. A PwC survey in July 2022 ranked the UK as the most important market for US business leaders, overtaking China. US foreign direct investments in the UK were valued at roughly $860 billion (£678 billion) in 2022. The UK was the seventh-largest goods export market for the US in 2022. But foundations are only as good as what you build on them – and our leaders don’t seem interested in building much of anything.

It’s a similar story across the border in Canada, the UK’s 13th largest export market with whom we conduct trade worth tens of billions of pounds a year. In January, Britain walked away from negotiations to replace our post-Brexit legacy deal, after the Canadians refused to let us maintain bans on agricultural products which would have effectively prevented their farmers from exporting to the UK.

If the government really believes the public will not buy hormone-treated beef or chlorine-washed chicken (although the overwhelming majority would eat these things if holidaying in Canada), it ought to have been an easy concession – consumers would simply have continued to favour domestic produce. Instead, the deal sank.

The list goes on. Just last week, after two years of talks and 14 rounds of negotiations, the government put trade discussions with India ‘on ice’ until later this year. The reason? In exchange for better terms for British exports such as cars, whiskey, and legal and financial services, India wanted faster and easier processing arrangements for its companies to send workers to the UK.

One can see why this might be sensitive – and if the government were making a serious effort to reduce this country’s dependence on imported labour, some reticence might be understandable. But since Rishi Sunak and Jeremy Hunt have absolutely no intention of doing that, it is absurd to hamstring our exporters for the sake of making life difficult for workers we are going to need anyway.

Then there are the deals we aren’t even attempting. There has been no mention of any effort to open negotiations with Mercosur, the Latin American trade bloc, despite its members having a combined population of 260 million, GDP of $2.6 trillion (£2 trillion), and annual output of $2.2 trillion (£1.75 trillion). Boris Johnson’s recent trip to Venezuela, organised by a hedge fund, showed more commercial initiative towards an entire continent than has HM Government.

It’s the same story in the Middle East. Not only does the UK have no deal with the Gulf Cooperation Council (whose combined economies are worth $16 trillion (£12.64 trillion) and home to 54 million people), but we don’t even have individual trade agreements with any of its members. Negotiations have dragged on since 2022, despite the GCC (unlike Joe Biden) actually wanting a deal. Given that it is our fourth-largest market outside the EU, worth £61.5 billion annually, a comprehensive agreement could be a real shot in the arm to our ailing economy.

The government put trade discussions with India ‘on ice‘ until later this year

The picture isn’t all doom and gloom. Our expected accession to the Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership (CPTPP) is a real bright spot: the bloc generates 13 per cent of the world’s income, represents 500 million people, and with the UK as a member will have a combined economy valued at £11 trillion. But in a way, that just makes the rest of the scoresheet more damning. CPTPP shows that we can strike deals, when the will is there. So why isn’t it?

In part, it’s a manifest lack of sincere belief in free trade. Despite committing to making this country a ‘champion of free trade’ in 2019, in practice the Conservatives have lapsed back into their historic role as the party of domestic protection, sectional interest, and ground rents. Other nations are, quite rightly, not interested in deals which open opportunities for our exporters whilst saying their products are not fit even to be an option on the shelf for British consumers.

Nor is the problem confined to politicians. After decades spent working inside the EU’s framework, parts of the Civil Service appear deeply resistant to a more flexible and dynamic approach to trade – so much so that negotiators on the US deal sometimes gave the impression of moving slowing while there was a pro-agreement president in the White House.

Whoever is to blame, this abject performance has to change. If politicians are going to lecture us on the imperative of growth, and hector the economically inactive back to work, the bare minimum we can expect is for them to do their part – and sign the deals Britain badly need.