08:58

The former Lib Dem business secretary Sir Vincent Cable has said it is a “fallacy” that Britain will be able to conjure up a series of new trade deals post Brexit that will boost what he says is a fundamentally “weak” economy.

Coveted trade deals with the likes of US and India are fraught with practical difficulties, he told the UK in a Changing Europe conference.



The Indians had already “sent Theresa May packing” over Britain’s refusal to grant more visas to entrepreneurs and students, he said, while a deal with the US would take “years” to complete.

Cable said he had a glimpse of the practical difficulties during talks for the now stalled transatlantic trade and investment partnership (TTIP) trade deal.

“The practical problem that arose was whose technical standards do you adopt?” he said, referring to the differing standards that apply to food, pharmaceuticals and cars.

Any car manufacturer in the UK would be horrified at the whole idea that they’ve got to completely rejig all their machine tools and their production lines in order to adopt technical standards of US, with which we currently do very little business.

Fears have previously been raised about the future of food standards with an exit from Europe potentially paving the way for hormone-impregnated meat and genetically modified grain making their way onto British supermarket shelves.

“People are rushing into this and [talking about] the wonders of these new trade deals they haven’t even begun to think of the nitty gritty practical problems,” he said.