Theresa May’s trip to Africa seems to have gone very well. In some ways it must seem like a bit of a holiday to her given her troubles at home, where she continues to come under siege from both sides of the Brexit debate.

Her little dance in South Africa, while obviously a little #awks, seems to have gone down rather better than her awkward curtseys to Prince Williams. The usual suspects have been out on the media deriding the amount of trade we do with sub-saharan Africa and claiming that any extra trade cannot possibly make up for the lost trade with the EU. Bollocks on so many accounts. I see no reason why trade with the EU should fall by any significant amount after Brexit, if at all. It has been declining in per centage terms for years now, so that trade will no doubt continue, but in volume terms I’d be very surprised indeed if there were any decline at all.

The media have wheeled out Sir Simon Fraser, former Permanent Secretary at the Foreign Office, who can always be relied upon to deride any aspect of Brexit. He tweeted:

“So far as I can see from ONS [Office for National Statistics] stats, [the] EU accounts for about 45% of all UK trade and Sub Saharan Africa accounts for about 1.5%.”

I know the FCO has never quite reconciled itself to its new role in promoting British trade rather than simply host diplomatic receptions (I exaggerate to make a point), but what exactly is his point here? That we should just concentrate on trading with the EU and sod the rest of the world?

There are huge opportunities in Africa and as the main former colonial power, Britain ought to have a head start in exploiting them, but instead successive British governments have virtually ignored Africa. President Xi has visited Africa 79 times. Theresa May’s visit was the first to Africa by a British prime minister since 2011. Go figure.

The Chinese are cleaning up in Africa. They’re pouring huge amounts of money into various countries and are effectively the new empirical rulers. Theresa May’s visit to South Africa, Nigeria and Kenya ought to be the first of many by UK politicians and business leaders. The ambition should be to double our trade with these countries within ten years.