EU says UK will struggle to match its free trade deals

The UK will struggle to conclude the same high quality free trade deals as the European Union due to its small size and continuing uncertainty over Brexit, the EU’s agriculture commissioner has said. Phil Hogan, who was visiting Australia for talks on an EU-Australia free trade agreement, also warned that a no-deal Brexit would result in a big jump in food prices in the UK, a move that would cause the public to punish those responsible at the ballot box. “Size matters in trade,” Phil Hogan told the FT in an interview. “Five hundred million customers will always resonate more with a third country when they want to do a trade deal with the EU, rather than 65m. This is what Mr [Liam] Fox is finding out as he travels around the world. Japan recently told him: ‘Come back to us when we see the implementation of the EU deal’.”