UK threatens 'Australian Brexit' if Canada deal rejected

BRITISH Prime Minister Boris Johnson declared on Monday that he sees a "Canadian-style" trade relationship with the EU as the best way to realise his ambitions of a post-Brexit "global Britain". Yet, he threatened Brussels that he will alternatively go for an "Australia" model, essentially akin to a no-deal exit, if the EU refuses a Canadian approach, in what is a dramatic raising of the stakes.

Mr Johnson's set-piece speech - which had the title of Unleashing Britain's Potential - underlines that the so-called Comprehensive Economic and Trade Agreement (CETA) between the EU and Canada is increasingly seen by many Brexiteers as the best template for a future EU-UK deal, despite the plethora of potential pitfalls for the United Kingdom. CETA, covering around a fifth of the global economy, took the best part of a decade to negotiate and was signed in 2016.

It saw some 98 per cent of all tariffs on goods traded between Canada and the EU-27 become duty free, and has been billed as "the most ambitious trade agreement Europe has ever concluded". Most tariffs were removed when the deal came provisionally into force in 2017 with the key remaining step being full ratification - which could potentially take several more years.