KEMI: PM MUST MAKE MORE OF OUR BREXIT FREEDOMS

KEMI Badenoch has urged Sir Keir Starmer to maximise the UK's Brexit freedoms in the face of global economic turmoil.

- Martyn Brown

The Tory leader said instead of "sitting back" as the US and China fight a tariffs war, the PM should be going full throttle to boost trade with other nations.

She was speaking before Donald Trump last night sent markets soaring by pausing tariffs above 10% on all countries except China for 90 days. The US President previously slapped a 10% levy on most British imports compared with 20% for the EU. Mrs Badenoch insisted that Sir Keir had been wasting time "congratulating himself" that the UK had been hit less hard. She said: "Those tariffs are lower because of Brexit, because we left the European Union." The former Conservative trade secretary helped negotiate Britain joining a £9trillion Pacific-wide trading bloc.

It is regarded as the country's biggest post-Brexit prize yet. Mrs Badenoch said Sir Keir should be beating down the doors of the bloc's member nations, including Australia, Japan, Singapore and Vietnam to do business.

Speaking to the Daily Express in Evesham, Worcestershire, yesterday, she said: "Keir Starmer is congratulating himself on getting better tariffs than other countries. Those are lower because we left the European Union.

"We have an independent trade policy. He now needs to use that independent trade policy to go and collaborate with countries in the CPTPP (Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for TransPacific Partnership).

"That's the deal I negotiated. It's got 12 countries in it all of them are feeling the brunt of Trump's tariffs.