52 The EconomistFebruary 10th 2018
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TANDING eight metres tall, the inflat-
able Trojan horse outside the European
Commission office a couple of years ago
was difficult to miss. It was erected by cam-
paigners bearing 3m signatures from Euro-
peans who wanted to scupper the Trans-
atlantic Trade and Investment Partnership
(TTIP), a sprawling free-trade deal between
the European Union and America. For
Brexiteers, such a scene seems ideal to help
explain why Britain has to strike out on its
own; outside the EU, Britain would no lon-
ger be held back by continental trade ludd-
ites. Except this anti-TTIP protest took place
outside the Commission’s London office. A
full 500,000 signatories were British.
Britain’s attitude to free trade is more
complex than it seems. In a meeting of the
Brexit “war cabinet” taking place asThe
Economistwent to press, ministers were
due to thrash out a proposed customs rela-
tionship with the EU. At stake is Britain’s
ability to strike free-trade deals across the
globe. But amid the cabinet in-fighting,
what voters think is often overlooked.
At first glance Brits love free trade, or at
least say they do. Given the choice, nearly
half of voters would opt for the ability to
do free-trade deals globally—even if it
meant customs controls between Britain
and the EU, according to YouGov. Jacob
Rees-Mogg, the leader of the Conserva-
tives’ hard-Brexit caucus, can be confident
of the support of party members: 70% of
them want out ofthe customsunion, ac-
cording to research from Queen Mary Uni-
versity of London.
But this zealotry is not shared by typicalpromised to veto TTIPif elected. Nor was
John McDonnell, the shadow chancellor, a
fan. He said TTIPwas aimed at “reinforc-
ing...corporate global kleptocracy”. Rebel-
lious Conservative MPs have backed La-
bour-led amendments on trade policy.
Outside Westminster, campaigners know
how to raise mischief. In Britain, linking
TTIP and the idea of American firms even-
tually gaining access to the NHS was
enough to infuriate Middle Englanders,
say campaigners. And that was before Do-
nald Trump arrived in the White House.
It was not pure anti-Americanism that
drove protests. A deal with Canada—the
Comprehensive Economic and Trade
Agreement—attracted similar howls, due
to the inclusion of measures that let com-
panies sue governments. Campaigners
managed to fill town halls even when dis-
cussing such trade arcana, says Mark
Dearn from War on Want, a charity. The re-
sult was stark: Britain delivered a third of
the 150,000 responses to a European Com-
mission consultation on these investor-
state dispute-settlement clauses—more
than any otherEUcountry.
The worry for officials in the DITis that
negotiations this time round will be more
visible, risking bigger public protests. In the
EU, negotiations took place in Washington,
Ottawa and Brussels, faraway lands of
which British voters knew little and cared
less. British trade deals will be hammered
out in Whitehall. “It’s Liam Fox, not some
faceless bureaucrat,” says a campaigner.
To his credit Mr Fox is aware of the po-
tential backlash. He wants to avoid a re-
peat ofTTIP, “where a huge amount of
work is done only to find the public won’t
accept it.” Plus, Mr Fox benefits from an
ideological tailwind: overall Brits are in-
creasingly liberal on trade. Although a plu-
rality (36%) still demand a protectionist ap-
proach, this number is down from over
half since 2003, according to NatCen’s re-
search. Amending unpopular parts of
trade deals and guaranteeing stronger pro-Leave voters. They tend not to like free
trade: 50% of them think that Britain
should limit imports to protect the British
economy, according to data from NatCen
Social Research, which gauges public opin-
ion. Barely a fifth believe otherwise. “Bet-
ter trade opportunities with the wider
world” was chosen by only 9% of Leave
voters as the main reason for voting for
Brexit, far behind legal independence and
cutting immigration, according to ICM, a
pollster. The buccaneering Brexit put for-
ward by Liam Fox, the international-trade
secretary, is opposed—or ignored—by those
who supposedly voted for it. In practice,
Britons are among Europe’s keenest wreck-
ers of free-trade deals. They were at the
forefront of scuppering the planned trade
deal with America. More people signed an
anti-TTIP campaign in supposedly free-
trade-loving Britain than in traditionally
protectionist France.
For trade-deal boosters, this makes new
and awkward political alliances necessary.
Liberal Brexiteers must win over those
who voted Remain, who tend to be more
open when it comes to trade. Only a quar-
ter of Remain voters support a protection-
ist approach, with 41% opposed, according
to NatCen. But within the Department for
International Trade (DIT) officials worry
that Brexit and trade are mashed together
in minds of Remain voters, turning poten-
tial allies into sceptics. “When you say
‘trade’ they hear ‘Brexit’,” says one.
In Westminster, Labour are well-armed
to cause trouble. During the EUreferen-
dum Jeremy Corbyn, the Labour leader,The politics of trade dealsNot so global Britain
Britons love free trade, in theory. But they don’t necessarily love free-trade dealsBritain
Also in this section53 Britain’s best trade deals
54 Bagehot: Meritocracy and its
discontents