Truss’s admission talks on trade deal with US have been shelved is ‘terrible news for UK economy’, Labour says – UK politics live

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Ministers are reviewing the decisions to privatise Channel 4 and to scrap the BBC licence fee, Michelle Donelan, the new culture secretary, has said. My colleague Jessica Elgot has the story here.

Liz Truss will address the UN general assembly on Thursday. In another item of news to emerge from her trip overnight, No 10 has said she will promise that UK military aid to Ukraine in 2023 will match, or exceed, the military aid offered this year. In its news release Downing Street says:

The UK is already the second largest military donor to Ukraine, committing ?2.3bn in 2022. We have trained 27,000 members of the Ukrainian armed forces since 2015, and in the last year we have provided hundreds of rockets, five air defence systems, 120 armoured vehicles and over 200,000 pieces of non-lethal military equipment.

Last week saw the largest commercial road move of ammunition since the second world war as tens of thousands more rounds of UK-donated artillery ammunition went to the front lines in Ukraine.

The precise nature of UK military support in 2023 will be determined based on the needs of the armed forces of Ukraine. However, it is expected to include equipment like the multiple launch rocket system, provided to Ukraine by the UK and others, which has been decisive in allowing Ukraine to re-gain over 3,000 square kilometres of territory in recent days.

Good morning. As my colleague Pippa Crerar reports, it turns out Barack Obama was right after all. When it comes to a free trade deal with the US, post-Brexit Britain really is at the back of the queue.

Liz Truss admitted that she did not expect talks on a free trade deal with the US to start “in the short to medium term” while speaking to reporters last night on her plane over to New York, where she is attending the United Nations general assembly. No one who has followed progress towards the “massive” free trade deal once promised will be surprised by the substance of what Truss said; it has been clear since Joe Biden won the US presidential election that for the time being the deal is all but dead. But the fact that Truss was prepared to admit this quite openly is notable. Last year, on a similar trip to the US, Boris Johnson was more evasive.

In answering the question candidly, Truss was also burying a commitment in the Conservative party’s 2019 manifesto, which said:

Our goals for British trade are accordingly ambitious. We aim to have 80 per cent of UK trade covered by free trade agreements within the next three years, starting with the USA, Australia, New Zealand and Japan.

The Truss comment also marks the return of No 10 as a news-generation machine. After the death of the Queen, all government business was put on hold and even the sources who give journalists unattributable briefings more or less clammed up. But now political news is back. We will be hearing more from Truss later today, and this morning Michelle Donelan, the new culture secretary, has done a full interview round. I will summarise the key points shortly.

Labour opposed Brexit in 2016, but under Keir Starmer it is now presenting itself as the party that would “make Brexit work”, and it now routinely attacks the Tories for failing to implement Brexit properly. Nick Thomas-Symonds, the shadow international trade secretary, says Truss’s admission that the US free trade deal won’t happen is “terrible news” for the economy. He says:

The admission that there is no prospect of a trade deal with the USA is terrible news for the UK economy – it is costing billions in lost potential trade opportunities and holding back growth.

There is no doubt that the blame for this mess lies at the door of the prime minister, who tarnished the UK’s international reputation as foreign and international trade secretary. This is an embarrassment for Liz Truss.

The Conservative manifesto promised a trade deal with the United States by the end of this year, now this has no chance of being delivered.

Only the fresh start a Labour government can provide will rebuild these international relationships and run a trade policy focused on growth.

Parliament is not sitting today. Here is the agenda.

Lunchtime (UK time): Liz Truss is expected to record interviews in New York, where she is in a visit to attend the United Nations general assembly.

Around 4pm (UK time): Truss is due to hold a meeting with Emmanuel Macron, the French president.

Also, at some point today Brandon Lewis, the new justice secretary, is due to hold a meeting with the Criminal Bar Association to discuss the barristers’ strike.

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