The government is betraying Brexit with its new border checks regime, says Jacob Rees-Mogg

The EU prohibits its members from negotiating its own trade deals.

For years this closed us off from the likes of Australia, Canada, Japan and even the United States.

Since leaving the EU, we have successfully negotiated a free trade agreement with Australia, New Zealand and Japan.

We are also in negotiations with India and the Gulf Cooperation Council for FTAs and improvements with Canada, Mexico, Switzerland and Israel, none of which would be possible from within the EU.

We have also joined the Trans-Pacific Partnership. This trading bloc is projected to make up significantly more of global GDP than the EU over the coming decades.

In the year to March 2022, the latest figures available, the Department for International Trade resolved 192 trade barriers in 79 countries.

It’s clear that the future of global trade and economic growth does not lie with the EU, but rather with the Anglosphere and east Asia.

Look no further than the GDP growth between the US and EU. In 2008, the US and EU economies were roughly the same size.

Now, the US’s GDP is two thirds larger than the EU’s.

There is no doubt that leaving the EU was the best decision we could have made for our economy.

The erstwhile engine of EU growth, Germany, has faltered, while we have outgrown.

However, the government decided upon an act of self-sabotage, essentially trying to make the United Kingdom a mini European Union.

The government has announced that consignments of EU plant and animal products will face charges of up to £145 from the end of April.

And trade groups have reacted with horror.

Instead of removing checks with other safe countries, it has been decided that the over-regulated EU is dangerous and the particular problem with these checks is that they disproportionately affect small and medium sized businesses.

The checks won’t have a big effect on larger companies who can afford the border costs, but small and medium sized firms will either be forced to stop the imports or pass over the costs onto consumers.

Many claimed that these checks are a necessity of Brexit.

But this is entirely untrue.

All imports from the European Union since 2020 have entered the country without these checks up until this year.

So why do we need to impose them now?

Food products from a highly regulated market are not inherently risky.

They haven’t caused any biosecurity risks over the past three years. So why introduce a self-sabotaging policy now?

When I was in government, the Department for Food and Agricultural Affairs wanted to impose these checks but I was able apparently to stop them with support from Boris, Liz Truss and Suella Braverman.

But as it turns out, they were merely delayed when it would have been much more sensible to abandon them altogether.

We are still working on digital border technology known as the Single Trade Window that is expected to be implemented later this year.

This technology will allow far less friction on our border with all countries, not just the EU.

Free trade benefits the consumer by cutting prices.

This type of protectionism simply damages the economy and makes us all poorer.