Free trade just a fringe niggle

By COLIN JAMES

Anti-free-trade demonstrators often hog the news at World Trade Organisation meetings, but they don't reflect mainstream views in this country.

Asked by BRC Marketing and Social Research whether the WTO was in the main good or bad for this country, 75 per cent said good and only 12 per cent said bad.

The same goes for free-trade agreements: 78 per cent thought they were good and only 10 per cent thought they were bad.

Generally, younger voters were more in favour than older ones, men more than women and richer ones more than poorer ones. But all categories were heavily in favour of both the WTO and free-trade deals.

So much for unions which battled a deal with Hong Kong to a standstill and for the Greens who oppose all trade deals. There is now not just a near-consensus among parties on free trade but a wide, popular consensus as well.

Moreover, there is a strand of international union opinion which argues that opposition to globalisation is futile.

Guy Ryder, secretary of the International Confederation of Free Trade Unions, told the Council of Trade Unions conference last month to be "actors, not victims", to give up polemics and instead argue for regulation, order and guarantees of "democratic control" and to internationalise union activities and influence corporate behaviour through pension funds.

The popular consensus for free trade may be partly due to the political consensus: Governments for 20 years have pushed free - or at least freer - trade.

That strong lead may have helped create popular backing, just as the strong lead by Governments has helped embed the anti-nuclear policy, despite its costs in Washington and Canberra.

But not all free trade is favoured. Where the Government has been tepid, in its announcements two months ago of modest tariff cuts (to already low tariffs, it must be added), voters are uncertain, too.

Only 38 per cent thought the halving of tariffs for textiles, clothing and footwear would help the country, against 44 per cent who thought they would cause harm. This no doubt picked up on news media reports from manufacturers and unions fearing job cuts. The Government was lukewarm, with counter-arguments of strong growth elsewhere in the industry.

There is also some logic. People are likely to be warier of exposing their own countries' products to competition than of multilateral liberalisation, which has a quid pro quo of better worldwide access for our exports.

About 504 households were surveyed and the margin of error was 4.4 per cent.


* Tomorrow: Fran O'Sullivan on the rush to cosy up to China