Emily Thornberry has accused the government of failing to carry out an economic impact assessment of Boris Johnson’s Brexit deal, after two key government departments told the shadow international trade secretary they had no such document. When Thornberry challenged Truss in the House of Commons to produce economic analysis of the deal in January, the minister referred her to the EU taskforce in the Cabinet Office, which spearheaded the fraught negotiations. Johnson’s spokesperson had previously said the government would not be publishing its analysis of the economic impacts of the deal, but Thornberry has now written to Truss to ask whether the government failed to carry out an analysis at all. “It appears not that the government is refusing to publish the economic impact assessment it has conducted in relation to the UK-EU deal, but that no economic impact assessment was ever produced,” she said in a letter seen by the Guardian. Labour has begun to take a more aggressive approach to highlighting the shortcomings of Johnson’s Brexit deal and the impact on businesses in recent weeks.

Source: The Guardian March 12, 2021 14:56 UTC