Today’s speech was meaningless bravado from the government’s most policy-light minister – Gardiner

Barry
Gardiner MP, Shadow Secretary of State for International Trade, responding to Liam Fox’s
Conservative Party speech said:

“Today’s
speechwas an opportunity for the Secretary of State to allay
business and industry’s fears about the structure of our future trade
relations. A serious politician would have addressed the threat to 4,000 jobs
in Northern Ireland by the American decision to impose a 220 per cent tariff on
Bombardier’s CSeries aircraft.

“His
facile suggestion that “Free Trade in Action” will increase variety for
consumers and reduce prices will ring hollow to those who fear what it could
mean for British jobs, given the Conservative’s failure on Bombardier.

“Fox has
had more than a year to bring forward a trade white paper that sets out a
proper road map for business export and inward investment. Today would have
been a sensible time to introduce some of its key ideas. Instead we got
meaningless bravado from the government’s most policy-light minister.“