Brexit: UK could fail to strike trade deals if ‘preoccupied’ with environmental standards, controversial adviser suggests

Britain could fail to strike post-Brexit free trade deals if it is “preoccupied” with environmental standards, controversial adviser Tony Abbott has suggested.

The former Australian prime minister, who now acts as an adviser to the UK Board of Trade, urged Boris Johnson to focus on “climate initiatives” through mechanisms such as the UN climate summit, rather than in negotiating trade deals.

He also insisted there is an “eagerness” on both sides to secure a UK-Australia trade deal before Christmas with no tariffs or quotas, as he urged negotiators to hammer out an agreement in the coming months.

His remarks came after Mr Johnson and the international trade secretary, Liz Truss, faced intense fire earlier this year over Mr Abbott’s appointment to the UK Board of Trade amid controversy over his past remarks about women, LGBT people and climate change.

Appearing in front of the International Trade Committee, Mr Abbott said when he became prime minister of Australia in 2013 the country had series of deals under negotiation with China, Japan and South Korea.

“They’d been languishing largely because particularly under the former government the negotiators had been dare I say it, a little too preoccupied with labour standards, with environmental standards,” he said. 

“All these are important, I don’t for a second minimise them, but in the end a trade deal is about trade.”

He told MPs that a “cautionary note” he gave his public servants, and would give generally, was “if you want a trade deal focus on trade”.

Mr Abbott added: “If you want to do an environmental deal or animal welfare deal, do it through Cop [UN climate summit] or through some other mechanism and remember that the enemy is the best of the good.

“If we hold out for a deal that is absolutely perfect in every respect we may well never get it, but if we take the best we can get at this time that’s nearly always good in itself, it is the best possible platform for further progress.”

Questioned by the Labour MP Lloyd Russell-Moyle on his previous incendiary comments on climate change, the former Australian leader said: “Obviously the environment is incredibly important, as I have said time and time again, we’ve only got one planet and we can’t ravage it.

“I might have a different approach to zero emissions by 2050 to some others, but obviously we want to get emissions down as far and fast as we can.

“But I just think that if you try to do everything in a trade deal, you’ll end up doing nothing. There are other forums to pursue climate initiatives such as the Cop and look I’m sure Boris Johnson and [Australian PM] Scott Morrison will have all sorts of discussions in and around the Cop and I’m confident we are going to be steadily reducing our emissions.

“What you don’t want to do though is avoid doing a deal with Australia over something which might be a relatively theological point and in so doing needlessly advantage other countries that perhaps are much less scrupulous when it comes to environmental standards.”