@borntobequiet Thanks for the link.
Rebecca Pow was on Woman's Hour, and I know it's not strictly her brief, but she said the following:
Trade deal with Aus won't include meaningful agri trade, as Aus sells mostly to local Asia -pacific countries, although Aus would likely be interested in buying our high welfare/high quality meat!
UK farming high quality which will be supported, particularly through buying local/British - we have great labelling to facilitate consumer choice.
So, not much of a clue about economics in the real world, or that direct sale to the public is a small percentage of meat sales - the majority of which goes to processing and catering sectors, through which provenance is lost.
The thing that I don't understand - and I'm willing for it to be my lack of knowledge of the area that causes my confusion - but we had 45% of trade with the rest of the world while part of the EU. Those trade deals were as part of an enormous trading block, and while we might not have got exactly the terms that suited us via that route, we enjoyed the greater leverage we were afforded by being a key member of that block. How do we expect to get the terms we want and need, now we're out of that block, with less leverage?
Surely we are more exposed to having to accept a worse compromise.
Brexit does not make sense to me, on so many levels.