UK Failed to Represent us in Trade Talks

The UK government failed to properly communicate with the Crown Dependencies while agreeing its participation in a major trade deal which left us out agreements on services. 

While the Crown Dependencies are self-governing, our external affairs including trade deals are the responsibility of the UK.

During a sitting of the Justice Committee at Westminster, the committee heard that the UK had not only failed to properly communicate while agreeing to join the Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership, but the Crown Dependencies had to ask other partners what was happening. 

The CPTPP is a free trade agreement between Australia, Brunei Darussalam, Canada, Chile, Japan, Malaysia, Mexico, Peru, New Zealand, Singapore, Vietnam and now the UK.

Guernsey’s Minister for External Relations, Deputy Jonathan Le Tocq, stated his dissatisfaction that while the UK was agreeing to joining CPTTP, it had failed to represent the views of the Crown Dependencies and had failed to keep them up to date with why delays were occurring.

He said: ‘I think if it hadn’t, to be quite frank, been for some bilateral talks that we had informally with, for example, the Canadians, that they would not have realised quite where we were and exactly how we could progress in the timeframes that we were given.

‘We were able, thanks to minister [Greg] Hands at the time, thanks to his help, to have face to face formal meetings with the negotiators on the other side, that helped resolve some issues and we came to a conclusion that is not where we wanted to be, because there will be a delay in our accession into the service chapters and we are, all three of us, service industry jurisdictions.

‘I think that is often misunderstood, we are not primarily tourists and milking cows you know, that’s sometimes a misunderstanding that comes, a hundred years ago perhaps, but that is not our industry today.

‘So that was of concern to us and, to be frank, would be of concern to us if that becomes the normal work process for future negotiations.’

Asked where the Ministry of Justice, which is responsible for the Crown Dependencies interests, was in tis time by committee chair Sir Bob Neil MP, the Guernsey minister said he thought they were ‘doing their best’ but said that they were limited by the timeframes and resources available.

Adding to Deputy Le Tocq’s wording, Chief Minister Alf Cannan said that there had now been an ‘acknowledgment’ that the Isle of Man, Guernsey and Jersey should be included in agreements ‘from day one’.

He added: ‘I think the CPTTP has been a sort of benchmark if you like for perhaps finding out where everybody stood and whatever the reasons for the late notice that we were not going to come in for services, we have at least had a more positive acknowledgement about future free-trade agreements and I hope that the position will start to change.’

However, Jersey’s Minister for External Relations, Deputy Philip Ozouf, said that he believed that as the UK was joining the CPTTP, rather than it being a new agreement in full, it was an unusual and hopefully unique circumstance.

Reflecting on this, Labour MP Maria Eagle said it ‘must be pretty embarrassing’ for the UK government that the Crown Dependencies had to ask other countries for info on what was happening during negotiations.

She asked the Chief Minister if he had any suggestions about how the islands’ could be better represented at future negotiations.

He said: ‘It was clearly towards the end of the CPTTP that the positioning that we had assumed was being taken was not being taken, that did result in a flurry of activity and a call of perhaps closer representation or more of a presence perhaps around those negotiations, even if we were effectively in a side room.’

Mr Cannan said that while it is obvious that the UK’s prime concern will be its own affairs, the three Crown Dependencies may have to work better together in future to make sure that negotiators do properly understand our mutual and unique interests.

You can watch the full sitting below: