THE increasing likelihood of a “No Deal” Brexit will mean that the UK has only a deal with Japan to show off in terms of its economic relations with other rich nations, and it ensures that the UK Government will be even more keen on a deal with the United States.

While Donald Trump might benefit from concluding such a deal quickly, Joe Biden’s main priority if he wins on November 3 will be the US domestic situation, which has suffered so badly in recent times. How many concessions will the UK Government be prepared to make to bring about such a deal?

We have heard a lot about lower agricultural standards in the US: not only dipping chicken into chlorine to remove bacterial infection caused by US production methods, but beef from cattle fattened up by the use of hormones; GM crops; factory farms with creatures packed so tightly together they can barely move; the use on farms of pesticides which are banned in the European Union; and farmers more intent on maximising cheap production than on quality of product.

READ MORE: Internal Market Bill: UK Government suffers heavy Lords defeat

Moreover, labelling on food products is much less strict in the US, so we would know less about the content of food products imported from there. US practices also oppose public policy aimed at encouraging healthier diets, such as minimum unit pricing on alcohol or sugar taxes. The US could clearly demand that unless the UK accepts US food standards, there will be no trade deal.

Different standards also apply to cosmetics. More than 1,300 ingredients are banned from cosmetics in the UK. In the US, only 11 are banned. And testing on animals is banned here but still allowed in the US.

Tackling climate change could also be much more harder under a US-UK deal: the US fossil fuel industry could demand access to the UK market and the right to set up fossil fuel production like fracking in the UK. Government attempts to move to a low-carbon economy would then suffer.

Trade deals enable multinational companies to sue governments for high levels of compensation if their policies threaten to reduce the companies’ profit margins. For example, the Scottish Government’s bans on smoking in public places and on GM crops, its moratorium on fracking and its stronger climate change targets could all be threatened.

In addition, the US has a number of enormous private healthcare corporations which want the right to bid for contracted-out parts of the NHS. It insists on the highest levels of intellectual property protection, including patents, and this enables its huge pharmaceutical companies to maintain monopolies over much-needed medicines and to control their prices. The NHS drugs bill could be greatly increased by a trade deal with the US.

Finally, the benefit to the economy of a trade deal with the US would be tiny in comparison with one with the EU (it is estimated at only a 0.16% increase in GDP after 15 years), but the UK Government somehow fails to mention that. If we can trade with the EU without a deal, we should find it much easier not to agree a problematic deal with our transatlantic friends.

Bob Gillespie
Glasgow

THANK you for reporting that the House of Lords Select Committee on the Constitution has lambasted the House of Commons for their Internal Market Bill.

This is very good news indeed and entirely corroborates the Scottish Parliament’s conclusion that the bill is a power-grab from the devolved parliaments of Wales and Scotland. It also threatens to destabilise peace in Northern Ireland and breaks international law over the Good Friday Agreement.

I think this item of news could have been better publicised: the select committee deserved praise, rather than being consigned to the bottom article on an internal page. I suppose the rule of thumb is House of Lords-bad, like Tory-bad. But this is no better journalism than the BBC’s SNP-bad. Do the snipes have to go on?

When I find that The National has been bought out before I get to our shop, I am glad because it shows a spreading interest for an independent parliament in Scotland, but also because it means, for that morning at least, I do not have to digest some fierce political back-stabbing.

Now if the very beautiful photographs sent to you by contributors which you publish every day on your centre page were transferred to your outside page, The National would quickly become a collectors’ item!

Lesley J Findlay
Fort Augustus

I FAIR choked on my parritch when I started the Sunday National crossword at the weekend. Clue 34 down informed me that there were invaders “leading an attack on Britain in August 1588.”

Two decades before the Union of the Crowns? 120 Years before the Union of Parliaments? Britain in 1588? Tsk Tsk, sir!

The answer was, I believe, [the]Spanish Armada. I could wager a fair dubloon that England – and England alone – were in the crosshairs of King Philip of Spain.

I wonder what The National’s resident historian Hamish MacPherson would make of such a cavalier treatment of Scotland’s history.

Kevin Cordell
Dundee

I WON’T go into a long and protracted argument for independence but I will say I 100% agree with Ruth Wishart (Why I’m done with playing the long game on indyref2, October 19). People are already leaving the SNP because of inaction – it is as if there was a deliberate grinding down of enthusiasm and support for independence. The longer Scotland waits, the more difficult it is going to be. The longer we wait, the further away the goal will be. The time is now!

Frieda Burns
Stonehaven