The new Secretary of State for International Trade, Anne-Marie Trevelyan, will soon discover that one of her biggest challenges –  as it was for her predecessor – will be to resist the lobbying of pro-EU special interest groups based in London.

I speak not of those who wish to rejoin the EU. Rather, of the NGOs and officials lobbying the Trade Department who want to recreate the EU regulatory model in London. This is a stealth campaign, and if the trade benefits of Brexit are to be realised, then Ms Trevelyan will need to stand firm against it.

Green advances

The effort to capture Ms Trevelyan has already begun: the green NGO WWF has demanded that new EU-style regulations should be applied to the government’s Environment Bill (amendments have been proposed by Labour MPs and some Conservative backbenchers). Some UK supermarkets and large firms are asking the new SoS to align the UK with the EU’s Due Diligence regulations – some inside government, mostly in Defra, also support this EU alignment. Giving in to these demands would undo much of the good work made in recent years.

Keeping the barriers away

Trevelyan’s predecessor Liz Truss and former foreign secretary Dominic Raab (whose job Truss has now inherited) have built a trade and economic strategy that is deliberately distinct from the EU. It is focused not on over-regulation or lecturing other countries, as Brussels is …