Briefings Priorities for the EU-UK future trade relationship
Priorities for the EU-UK future trade relationship
The UK's new relationship with the EU will have major impacts on everyday life. Civil society groups have come together to demand that we use this opportunity to ensure that labour rights, food safety and environmental standards receive binding treaty protection. The UK government urgently needs to change tack and adopt strong Level Playing Field provisions with the EU if we’re to have any hope of retaining the workers' rights, high quality food and action on climate change that the public demand.
To ensure we can achieve this outcome, we need to address the outdated and undemocratic process that the UK currently uses to negotiate trade deals. Public scrutiny and a guaranteed vote for MPs are vital to ensure that the EU-UK trade deal reflects the public interest.
The sequencing of trade negotiations is also key. Our discussions with the EU must not be further complicated by attempts to run negotiations with other trade partners such as the US at the same time. We need to secure our most important trading relationship first.
The EU-UK trade deal must be truly innovative, and not replicate provisions from other deals that do not serve social and environmental goals. This treaty is an opportunity to reinvent trade policy to ensure it truly serves the public interest, rather than treats trade as an end in itself. This briefing outlines civil society's initial public demand that we make full use of that opportunity.
