US-UK trade deal

Global Justice Now returned to court today to challenge Boris Johnson’s government to release details of secret trade talks held with at least 21 countries including the USA, China, Turkey and Saudi Arabia.

Campaigners will challenge the Department for International Trade in court on Thursday 12 December over its failure to release full details of dozens of post-Brexit trade talks. The papers, including the redacted minutes of US-UK negotiations which have become a major political issue during the general election, were released to campaign group Global Justice Now in heavily redacted form earlier this year. But campaigners claim the blacked out documents are an affront to democracy, arguing that the far-reaching implications of trade deals today necessitate high levels of transparency and scrutiny which the government is blocking.

A Global Justice Now spokesperson said:

“The leak of the Trump Trade Files has revealed the threat to NHS drug prices, to food standards and to our democracy itself from a US-UK trade deal. Wherever the leak came from, no one has disputed that the documents are real. They are information, not disinformation.

"Voters can now clearly see what the Conservative government has been willing to put on the table in these trade talks, and will be able to make an informed choice on 12 December.”

Documents have been leaked from six rounds of trade talks between the US and the UK. We look at what the documents say and what it means.

Trade campaigners have welcomed the release of leaked papers detailing trade talks between the Trump administration and British government officials, which show the US government pushing Britain into as hard a Brexit as possible because they see this as the best way of benefitting the US economy. This comes at the expense of standards, protections and livelihoods in Britain.

Campaign group Global Justice Now today called on Prime Minister Boris Johnson to order the release of multiple documents, dubbed the ‘Trump Trade Files’, relating to trade talks between the UK government and the Trump administration, in advance of the general election on 12 December, so that the electorate can be properly informed on the government’s plans for post-Brexit trade.

Campaign group Global Justice Now lambasted the free trade policies of Boris Johnson today, claiming they represent both a threat to Britain’s public services and food system, and have brought runaway climate change a step closer.  

Ahead of Johnson’s breakfast with Donald Trump at the G7 in Biarritz tomorrow, campaigners warned that Johnson’s proposed trade deal with Trump would inevitably make Britain more unequal and less able to deal with poverty and climate change.

Campaign group Global Justice Now has accused Boris Johnson’s government of pushing ahead with an extreme US trade deal without a mandate from the public or parliament.

Trade campaigners have reacted with fury to the long-delayed results of the Department for International Trade’s four public consultations on post-Brexit trade deals, released today. They accuse the department of planning to ignore hundreds of thousands of responses demanding that the public is given a say over future trade deals, and expressing concern over the prospects for food standards and the NHS.