12 suitably scathing responses to Liz Truss’s ‘expert’ opinion on the UK’s latest trade deal
Before she was an economy-crashing PM, Liz Truss had many political hats, including Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, which is when she made this memorable speech.
She later became the Secretary of State for International Trade, during which time she posed for a lot of photos and did little more than roll over some trade deals from the UK’s time in the EU. So, it’s no surprise that this news caught her eye.
📣 NEWS: the UK-Australia & UK-New Zealand trade deals enter into force today.
Both deals are the first negotiated from scratch by the UK as an independent trading nation. They will make buying & selling goods & services cheaper, easier & faster.
More 👉 https://t.co/9hDejkjsnD pic.twitter.com/OWbDSCiB0X
— Department for Business and Trade (@biztradegovuk) May 31, 2023
The deal has been estimated to be worth a growth to the UK economy of 0.08% by 2035 and was openly mocked on New Zealand TV, where they couldn’t quite believe the British had agreed to such an uneven deal. And that’s not all –
Government's own figures estimate that Aus deal at best would increase UK GDP by just 0.08% a year by 2035.
New Zealand deal, while benefitting NZ will have “limited effect … in the long run” and could actually reduce UK growth by -0.01%.
Some new era huh https://t.co/LWVwM78e2g
— Otto English (@Otto_English) June 1, 2023
This is what she had to say about it.
The words “You what, mate?” spring to mind, but only because “Are you on crack?” might be considered a bit too disrespectful.
Tweeters didn’t hold back.
1.
You've got to watch out for those 'authoritarian regimes'. Clues include outlawing peaceful protest, the support of a supine media, banning strikes, deporting refugees & blacklisting experts who criticise the regime… https://t.co/pUsaPwK6yg
— James O'Brien (@mrjamesob) May 31, 2023
2.
The lack of any shame, let alone any self awareness! https://t.co/Nz2sAAs8WC
— alexandra hall hall 🇺🇦🌻 (@alexhallhall) May 31, 2023
3.
to think some people say she crashed the economy when this estimated 0.08% addition to GDP will make up the billions lost due to Brexit https://t.co/KPbwEz0hvn
— Toby Earle 🇺🇦 (@TobyonTV) May 31, 2023
4.
😅 Not even 1% to our GDP over 10 years.
That’s like walking out of a steakhouse with a t-bone on tour table, and celebrating a solitary chicken wing.
Disgraceful, sad and frankly quite pathetic.
Oh and cheers for bumping up everyones mortgages. You’ve a star.
— Farrukh (@implausibleblog) May 31, 2023
5.
These deals do mark a new era for Britain as an idiotic, self-harming trading nation and they wouldn’t have been necessary either if we were still in the EU, where we’d also have had a much better chance of standing up to authoritarians than we do now pissing around on our own.
— sarah murphy (@13sarahmurphy) May 31, 2023
6.
I do love how Brexit, which Liz Truss did not vote for, is now about standing up to authoritarian regimes. Why didn’t she want to stand up to authoritarian regimes in 2016? Am entirely deranged person who’ll be laughed at by history for hundreds of years.https://t.co/crpXJKvHo6
— Tom Peck (@tompeck) June 1, 2023
7.
A reminder that this is the person who literally lost to a head of lettuce. https://t.co/je31CDA7ko
— US Rep Brendan Boyle (@RepBrendanBoyle) June 1, 2023
8.
Leaving aside the miniscule nature of this trade, which part of this is standing up to authoritarian regimes? https://t.co/Kgap7QYEX1
— Brian Moore (@brianmoore666) May 31, 2023
9.
You’ve got balls I’ll give you that.
— christhebarker (@christhebarker) May 31, 2023
10.
“wouldn't have been possible while we were in the EU.”
Very true, Liz. If we’d done Oz & NZ deals as part of the EU, there’s simply no way we’d have deals that screwed our farmers so badly.
Can you name a single deal of the 50+ we negotiated as the EU that anyone objected to? https://t.co/yh7ruUbr2j
— Dr Mike Galsworthy (@mikegalsworthy) May 31, 2023
11.
Remember all the huffing and puffing when Obama said we’d be ‘at the back of the queue’ for a US trade deal, if we left the EU? Seven years on, it’s ‘hopefully in due course’. We’re not even in the queue. https://t.co/GWaLop6Rj6
— Dr. Bendor Grosvenor 🇺🇦 (@arthistorynews) June 1, 2023
12.
You’d need a microscope to see the benefits of these trade deals. The damage of Brexit is visible from space. https://t.co/A8I72My3XA
— David Clark 🇺🇦 (@David_K_Clark) May 31, 2023
Edwin Hayward had one more fact for Ms Truss.
In all the breathless hype about the UK's Australia and NZ trade deals coming into force, and how they would have been impossible inside of the EU, nobody's alluding to the fact that the EU signed a better trade deal with NZ than ours is, after we'd left. https://t.co/fflqg5R2wA
— Edwin Hayward (@edwinhayward) May 31, 2023
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Favourite 27 things people said about this photo of Liz Truss ‘doing trade deals with Japan’
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