DURING Britain’s time as an EU member the British government was a party to 40 trade deals which covered 70 countries.

In this post-Brexit period Britain is focused on trying to secure trade deals that replace arrangements made when it was a member of the EU.

One of the concerns of organisations such as Amnesty International is that the current Tory Westminster government would be prepared to overlook human rights issues and labour abuse concerns to secure trade deals.

There are also concerns that the same government will not be fully transparent about the way it conducts trade deal discussions.

Britain has already signed trade agreements with Australia and New Zealand in the latter part of 2022. Talks on trade deals have also been started with India and Israel.

In August 2022 the government also started talks with the Gulf Co-operation Forum. This is an alliance which includes Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Qatar, Oman, Bahrain and the United Arab Emirates.

When the European Union had discussions with the Gulf states in the mid-1990s, the negotiations collapsed over the EU saying that there needed to be human rights provisions in any deals made.

This underlines the need for trade justice and human rights campaigners to monitor carefully how these discussions with Gulf states proceed.

The Independent newspaper in August 2022 revealed that the previous trade secretary Anne-Marie Trevelyan strongly suggested that human rights issues would be kept out of trade deals — which is probably a sentiment shared by many on the benches of today’s Tory Party.

A recent Guardian article also revealed that former chancellor Kwasi Kwarteng had undisclosed meetings with senior representatives of Saudi Arabia’s oil companies when he was business secretary. These meetings took place in January 2022.

The fact that Kwarteng held these meetings and tried to keep them secret should act as a warning that the Westminster government needs to be pressed constantly to be transparent on discussions it is having around trade deals, particularly around human rights issues.

The apparent disregard for human rights demonstrated by Trevelyan and Kwarteng’s under-the-radar meeting strategies raises serious concerns about how the Westminster government conducts itself in trade-related discussions.

We also need to remember that countries like Britain and the US cannot claim to be squeaky clean when it comes to human rights. 

To name just a couple of examples, the recent plans of the government to send asylum-seekers to Rwanda was challenged on human rights grounds and the human rights of prisoners in the US has long been a cause for concern.

It is also important to recognise that trade deals themselves can worsen human rights. As War on Want has said, “The USA has been the leading champion of the so-called ‘free-trade’ agenda of economic deregulation which puts corporate profit above human rights, and allows rich countries to dominate and exploit poorer ones. 

“The UK is second behind the USA in promoting this agenda, which has helped to impoverish much of the global South.”

We have to beware of hypocrisy when it comes to challenging human rights abroad as we negotiate new trade deals.

However despite the difficulties, campaigning for trade justice must continue in this very difficult post-Brexit period and some organisations have good practical suggestions regarding human rights.

The organisation Transform Trade, formerly Traidcraft, has come up with some ideas in relation to trade deals which are worth bearing in mind and very worthy of support.

One idea is to campaign for a new law called a Business, Human Rights and Environment Act. The idea behind this Act is to make it the responsibility of businesses to avoid causing harm to people and the planet.

Transform Trade is also calling for a fashion watchdog to ensure that the fashion industry is people-centred and treats people fairly.

It is also interesting to note that the organisation Compassion in World Farming said in a recent submission to the international trade select committee at Westminster that any trade deal with the Gulf states should link access to British markets to improvements in animal welfare standards and in so doing giving Gulf exporters an incentive to improve standards.

It seems to me that a similar approach should be adopted in relation to human rights.

The need to link human rights with trade deals and access to British markets is perhaps best summed up by Peter Franketal, Amnesty International UK’s economic affairs director, when he said recently: “Any notion that trade can somehow be cordoned off from human rights issues ignores the grubby reality that multinational corporations all too often profit from lax labour laws, which can result in conditions amounting to modern slavery.”

Arthur West is chair of Ayrshire Global Justice Now and a member of Trade Coalition Scotland.