Kemi’s sour grapes response to ‘two-deals Keir’ is a recipe for Tory chaos

Aesop’s fable of the fox and the grapes is often misused, as the phrase “sour grapes” tends to refer simply to a bad loser. But it applies with deadly accuracy to the Conservative response to Keir Starmer’s trade deals with India and the United States.

Like the fox trying to pluck the succulent grapes that are just too high for him to reach, the Tories tried desperately to secure agreements with both countries for years.

And, like the fox giving up, telling himself that the grapes are sour so he doesn’t want them anyway, Kemi Badenoch now pretends that the deals are bad and that she wouldn’t have agreed to them.

Her act is unconvincing. It is so unconvincing that it took some of her own side by surprise. Andrew Griffith, her shadow trade secretary, responded to early reports of a US deal on Thursday: “A comprehensive UK-US trade deal would be welcome and another Brexit benefit.”

By the afternoon, Badenoch decided that it wasn’t welcome after all, and declared: “Keir Starmer called this ‘historic.’ It’s not historic, we’ve just been shafted!”

I thought the language was crass and undignified, but more significantly, the politics were all wrong. It is true that it is not much of a deal. It is nothing like the full free-trade agreement that Boris Johnson and Rishi Sunak were trying to obtain through their trade secretaries Liz Truss and Kemi Badenoch. But it is an important damage-limitation exercise. It means that Britain will be better off than if the original Trump tariffs had stood. At least now they will be lifted on steel and aluminium, and reduced on cars.

The Tory disarray has been embarrassing. Griffith was reduced on Friday morning to complaining that the US deal is “quite disappointing”. Meanwhile, Daniel Hannan, the Tory peer and free-trade Brexiteer, said: “We have just struck trade deals with the world’s largest and fourth-largest economies. Why so little enthusiasm?”

Other Tory voices who had praised Starmer’s India deal, such as Jacob Rees-Mogg and Oliver Dowden, seem to have been persuaded not to say anything about the US agreement, but their support for anything that reduces tariffs and opens up trade is obvious.

That Badenoch had misjudged the mood was, I think, confirmed at 10pm on Thursday night when Nigel Farage, who had been keeping his counsel all day, finally pronounced. “We are heading in the right direction,” he said. “We have a pro-British American president in the White House. Striking our own deal with America is another benefit of Brexit.”

The Brexit dividend line makes little sense, because, welcome as the India and US deals are, they fail to compensate for the economic loss imposed by our departure from the EU. But at least Farage recognises the big picture, which is that Starmer has secured a tariff reduction. The “pro-British” American president shouldn’t have raised tariffs in the first place, not least because they make dolls more expensive for American children, but at least Starmer and Peter Mandelson have reduced them – and secured some side-benefits at the same time.

The big test for the Brexit free-traders will come on 19 May, when Starmer unveils the outline of a new trade deal with the European Union. Logic dictates that Farage, Hannan, Rees-Mogg and even Badenoch should welcome it, because the principle is the same as with the India and US deals. Anything that makes it easier to trade with the world’s second-largest economic bloc will make us better off and should be welcomed.

In the meantime, the Tory leader ought to be congratulating the prime minister on his negotiating triumph, securing three deals in two weeks to open up some of the biggest markets in the world.

What Badenoch the fox ought to be saying is: “Those grapes are really tasty; I wish I had been able to reach them.”

Join The Independent’s John Rentoul live at 3pm BST to ask your questions on what the deal means for Britain’s future. Submit your question using this link: /news/uk/politics/trump-tariffs-trade-deal-starmer-uk-b2747838.html