THIS was supposed to be good news. As Dominic Cummings persists in wreaking his Shakespearean revenge on his former boss, as the Westminster government announces a four-week delay to so-called Freedom Day, as everything Boris Johnson touches turns to farce, the UK-Australia trade announcement was supposed to be a jubilant moment of national pride.

A chance, if nothing else, to hoist the flags. Prime Ministers Johnson and Scott Morrison in their matching ties, standing in front of their respective iterations of red, white and blue, hailed this new partnership as a triumph.

But for who? Triumph was never going to be so straightforwardly procured.

Last year Johnson took part in some bizarre posturing with a packet of Arnott’s Tim Tams as he announced his desire to make friends in far places. There was talk of a Marmite-Vegemite international treaty. Nothing serious, nothing of weight from a Prime Minister who prefers symbolic gestures and waffling about vittles to hard yakka.

Did you know wombat poo comes out in cubes? He should have used that as a fun fact to entertain and amaze.

Warnings about the deal have been sounded for months. Farmers are deeply worried about the consequences of allowing dairy, beef and lamb unfettered access to UK markets from a country that operates an agricultural industry on a much greater scale than the capacities of British farms.

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There are also marked differences in animal welfare and food safety standards. Australia allows for practices banned in the UK, such as mulesing, the practice of taking fleece-bearing skin from around a sheep’s buttocks, hot branding and barren battery cages for hens.

As Dr Philippa Whitford raised in parliament yesterday, questioning Liz Truss on the issue, Australia uses antibiotics as growth promotors, which cause anti-microbial resistance and are a global health concern.

The environmental impacts are alarming also. Australia is not a green partner. The country allows the use of thousands of chemical substances banned in the UK and comes near the bottom of the international Climate Change Performance Index, a woeful 54th out of 60. It also has the practical disadvantage of being 10,000 miles away, entirely undercutting the government’s seriousness about carbon emissions targets and making a mockery of the need to eat sustainably and locally. At the weekend, Johnson spoke at the G7 summit of protecting the planet for future generations, but he is all words.

While agriculture and trade are making the headlines, of as much significance are the new visa rules. At the moment, Britons aged under 30 can secure a visa to live and work in Australia for 12 months. If they do 88 days of farm work, such as fruit picking, then they can extend their stay for another 12 months. The new trade deal allows anyone up to the age of 35 to stay for three years, no farm work required.

The deal also reverses a current safeguard on Aussie jobs for Aussie citizens. Currently, an Australian worker must be considered for a position before a Brit – but that will change, making it easier for visitors from overseas to gain work. So, a loss of cheap and regular farm labour plus a threat to Australian jobs. The country has lost 26,000 farm workers since closing its borders against coronavirus and a move that stops a ready supply of seasonal workers will surely meet resistance.

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It will be interesting to see how the unions, which are already calling for reassurances from Scott Morrison’s government, get on with their push back against these changes.

Here, what it amounts to is the Conservatives prioritising doctors, lawyers and other young professionals over Britain’s farming communities, a move those communities are unlikely to soon forget.

Free movement around 27 EU states has been taken from our young people and this new freedom, and I say this as someone who lived and worked in Australia, should be an addition, not a replacement.

The financial bonus of the deal for British families is estimated at up to £1.22 per household. If you drink a bottle of Australian wine a week then you can expect to save about 50p a year thanks to a cut in vineyard tariffs.

Instead of reaching out arms of welcome to our Antipodean cousins, we’re picking over Australia’s farming and environmental practices and finding them wanting.

How Boris Johnson must be wishing people were more focused on securing cheaper Australian swimwear, an under- publicised advantage to the deal.

The UK-Australia deal is to a great extent symbolic, with the governmental eye on the long prize.

Boris Johnson hopes this demonstration of competence at striking international trade deals could lead to the chance to join the Comprehensive and Progressive Trans-Pacific Partnership, a £9 trillion free trade area. The CPTPP is the world’s third largest free trade zone after the US-Mexico-Canada Agreement and, er, the European Union, made up of 11 members on both sides of the Pacific. The UK would be the first new entrant since the deal was ratified in 2018.

In the immediate term, however, the UK-Australia trade details are almost immaterial to Boris Johnson.

He is man of symbolism, not substance. To be able to stand in front of a flag and hail a post-Brexit success, no matter how superficial, no matter how flimsy, no matter who is sold up the river to secure it, is enough.

He is a prime minister fuelled by identity and nostalgia. The last time imports and exports between Australia and Britain were at a similar level was during the Second World War. Our self-proclaimed wartime prime minister is harking back to a time of peak British identity cohesion, a time when the nation state was less fractured.

This week an Iain Duncan Smith-led taskforce recommended the return to imperial measurements, and doesn’t that just speak to how embedded the Conservatives are in the abstract notion of past glories?

The left is criticised for its current obsession with individual identity and feeling, and its loose relationship with bald facts. But the right mythologises national identity.

A partnership with Australia is an attempt to prove Johnson’s repeated claims that Britain is a global-facing nation and that Brexit was not a move towards Trumpist insularism.

It will take time – and there is no hint of how much time – for the deal to be finalised and set into motion. Here’s hoping the reports of dire consequences have been greatly exaggerated, but no matter the outcome, Boris Johnson will continue waving his flags, uttering his empty catchphrases and enjoying the fantasy he is the head of a proudly unified, patriotic state.

Our columns are a platform for writers to express their opinions. They do not necessarily represent the views of The Herald.