The German Finance Minister recently told the BBC that the UK was buying fewer German goods because...
Author - Catherine McBride
Why shouldn’t the UK benefit from cheaper food?
It is a myth that cheaper importer food is produced to lower standards. It is a myth that the CPTPP...
Protecting the Golden Goose, Financial and business services in...
Catherine McBride describes the huge importance of financial and business services to UK trade but...
Woke regulation is killing capitalism.
The closure of Nigel Farage’s bank account is a warning to us all that pernicious forces are...
Trade with EU doing fine
Seven years after the vote to Leave the EU, UK trade is mostly unchanged. Possibly because EU...
Three cheers for Tony Blair – the unsung hero of Brexit
The spectacular miscalculation by the Blair Government of how many Eastern EU immigrants would move...
EU jam tomorrow?
According to a report in The Telegraph, the EU is proposing to change the fruit content...
Overlooked benefits from the UK Australia trade deal
Free trade, whether with the EU or with non-EU countries, is hugely beneficial for the UK economy...
More dubious Brexit claims – this time about imported EU food...
An updated paper from the CEP claims that 30% of the UK’s recent inflation was due to Brexit...
More fake Brexit news – this time from The Guardian
The Guardian is trying to pretend that the UK is a large fruit exporting nation and that this trade...
The UK’s environment laws, Retained EU Law Bill and yet more BBC...
The BBC’s Countryfile, various conservation organisations and even The House of Lords all seem to...
What the FT didn’t tell you about UK exports and the G7
The Financial times seems to have used every trick in the misinformation handbook to mislead its...
CPTPP MythBusters
There are many myths about the CPTPP circulating on the internet and some have even been repeated...
A brief history of hypocrisy.
Northern Ireland’s history is as long and as complex as that of the United States. Rather than...
A hoo-ha about British bangers
Trade expert Dr Catherine McBride argues that EU fears about non-compliant imports crossing an...
What’s wrong with claims of a ‘£1tn export failure’? Just about...
The recent Guardian article lamenting that the UK ‘will be 15 years late in hitting £1tn annual...
Who caused the problems for our labour market?
Catherine McBride questions the Labour Party’s attitudes to Brexit when it is clearly the free...
Don’t blame it on Brexit.
Bloomberg recently published an article by Philip Aldrick and Andrew Atkinson entitled The Economic...
F is for Food – a primer on trade for George Eustice
Mr George Eustice, sometime Secretary of State for the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, has...
Carney v Portes. Does it Matter?
It was disingenuous for a former Governor of the Bank of England to compare the UK economy...
Who’s really talking?
Markets don’t talk – those voices are coming from your television. The talking heads of mainstream...
Is Sunak the UK’s Trump?
The UK must follow the US’s lead and have a judicial review into this extraordinary well-funded...
The Mini-budget, Good but could be better
Three cheers for Liz Truss and her Chancellor, supply side reforms in energy and infrastructure are...
VAT: an EU souvenir we should dump
While many people are advising the new Prime Minister to cut income taxes or reduce Value Added Tax...
The path of future rainfall will not be smooth
UK rainfall is volatile and long-term water shortages are rare. But UK water companies and farmers...
Rishi Sunak is dead wrong about UK farming and the Australian...
The reality of the UK’s trade deal with Australia shows that the former Chancellor of the Exchequer...
Would Liz Truss’s plans to reduce taxes increase UK inflation?
Inflation is not due to ‘tax cuts’, and Liz Truss is anyway mostly planning to limit increases...
Why we really need to give a frack
Hydrocarbons have far greater benefits to human prosperity than detriments. The UK is lucky to have...
Can’t see the wood for the trees?
Why did the Telegraph publish a story taken directly from an environmental activist press release...
Food security does not require self sufficiency
Catherine McBride argues that it would be neither possible or sensible for the UK to aim at self...
The Potemkin trade deal with New Zealand.
The UK would benefit from importing the food that New Zealand produces more efficiently than the UK...
Food security does not require self sufficiency
Catherine McBride contests the Government’s claim that the UK is close to self-sufficient in a...
Will no MP promote the benefits of trade for consumers?
Food prices are rising and the war in the Ukraine could make things much worse in six months’ time...
Not all methane is created equal.
Whenever there is a call for a cut in methane invariably the Western media interprets this to mean...
Tax the Meat. Seriously?
A meat tax would penalise customers and hurt British beef and sheep grass-based farming even though...
A week is a long time in a manufactured panic
The UK employment market has ceased to function as a normal market. Now if a seasonal employer...
Environmental outrage: fake news attempt to block a trade deal
An environmental story with little substance was picked up by Sky News, repeated by The Guardian...
Processed Animal Protein feed – what could possibly go...
While the NFU claims that the UK has world-class food standards, the Minister for Rural Affairs...
Never let a Farmers Union determine a nation’s trade policy
Trade deals don’t guarantee trade, and large tariff free quotas aren’t always filled even when the...
Are we all mercantilists now?
With the UK Australia trade deal, the UK Government missed an opportunity to show the world, and...
15 years: a self-inflicted wound for the Government – and the...
Waiting 15 years to open the UK market to Australia’s unsubsidised beef farmers is not how you Get...
Some UK farms can compete with Australia
Catherine McBride argues that most agricultural activities in the UK are profitable and should be...
Should we be paying farmers to go away?
In this long version of her article in our Briefings section ‘Some Farms can compete with...
Time for cool heads in the trade debate
Policymakers should not be swayed by emotional rhetoric or economic philosophy when it comes to a...
A trade negotiation or a scene from WWF Wrestling?
A trade deal between Australia and the UK should be the easiest negotiation in the world. One...
We need to talk about Ireland
Catherine McBride warns that the UK must not be tempted into signing a veterinary agreement with...
The City must learn from Amsterdam and break free from the EU
The EU’s attitude to the City of London makes a mockery of EU claims about level playing fields and...
Is an Australian Style trade deal half full or half empty?
Boris Johnson likes to describe ‘no-deal’ as an Australian deal. One former Australian PM Tony...
An actually green carbon capture initiative is available now.
Catherine McBride argues that a number of simpler and more immediate measures could be taken to...
What could possibly go wrong with the new Trade and Agriculture...
A new Trade and Agriculture Commission is to oversee and report on the impact on farming of any new...