Mr Fox - our international trade secretary - promised at the Conservative Party conference that he had countries lined up to "roll over [trade deals] at one minute past midnight". This is where we continue trading with other countries on the same terms as we do currently, 'rolling over' the deal that we have with them as part of the EU.
Only a couple of weeks later it seems that not one of the 60 or so countries concerned have actually agreed to do this, he admitted: "We have not finished any agreements yet, but we have agreed on the methodology we will use to get to that end-point."
Confidence-inspiring stuff.
Oddly, Mr Fox's colleagues seem to have misunderstood this. Mr Davis (Brexit secretary) said last week, "All the big ones have said...they are interested". Lord Price (the former trade minister) said all the countries had already agreed to roll over the agreements. Given that Leave claimed free trade as Brexit's big selling point, it is a concern that these high-ranking Brextremists don't even know what is going on with our most important export markets.
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