UK Gov't Ignorant About Global Trade Processes Amid Brexit – Business Leader

EDINBURGH (Sputnik) — The UK government has no understanding over how the global trade works and any new trade deal, which UK ministers seek outside the European Union, will have additional consequences for inward migration to the country, Gordon MacIntyre-Kemp, the chief executive of Business for Scotland, a representative trading body, told Sputnik on Wednesday.

"The UK Government is all over the place. They do not even have a Plan A for Brexit and I do not think they truly understand how global trade works and they do not have enough civil servants with expertise in trade deals to actually manage the situation," MacIntyre-Kemp said.

These comments come after UK Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson reportedly told the Czech Hospodarske Noviny newspaper that he believed the UK would not remain part of the EU Customs Union after Brexit.

MacIntyre-Kemp noted that UK ministers were operating under a false assumption that exiting the European Union and doing new deals with other non-EU countries would avoid the perceived problems associated with inward immigration from other EU states into the United Kingdom.

"India will want to open up immigration in order to do a trade deal with the UK. If we are going to vote to keep Swedish, Polish, Danish and Belgian people out of the country I am pretty sure that people are not going to be too keen having lots and lots of Indians coming in as part of another trade deal. I do not mind so much about that, but that is a potential problem for those who advocate for restrictions on immigration," MacIntyre-Kemp added.

MacIntyre-Kemp, who is a manufacturing exporter himself, also warned that some trade deals could end up being more damaging for UK exporters if an agreement is reached with a country whose own manufacturing costs are a fraction of those in the United Kingdom.

On June 23, the United Kingdom held a referendum to determine whether or not the country should leave the European Union. According to the final results, 51.9 percent of voters, or 17.4 million people, supported Brexit.