BORIS JOHNSON is rushing into post-Brexit trade deals with countries who violate workers’ rights, trade unions and Labour warned today.

They said that the government was neglecting its supposed commitment to human and labour rights in its scramble to strike free trade agreements with non-European Union nations as part of the “global Britain” brand. 

The TUC and its international counterpart, the ITUC, pointed out that a third of the deals already struck are with countries that abuse workers’ rights.

These include Colombia, where 22 trade unionists were murdered in the past year, and Zimbabwe, where 13 nurses were arrested for requesting more personal protective equipment during the Covid-19 pandemic. 

The government needs to suspend some agreements and use its leverage to ensure countries respect labour and human rights, the TUC urged. 

General secretary Frances O’Grady said: “A government that readily agrees deals with countries which abuse rights abroad is one that won’t stick up for rights at home either.

“It’s time for ministers to stop the clandestine approach to trade deals and bring working people to the negotiating table.”

Unite said that it was particularly appalled by attempts to sign deals with Turkey, which routinely abuses workers’ rights and which is undertaking ethnic cleansing against the Kurdish people, the union’s international director Simon Dubbins stressed.   

Echoing the concerns, Indian Workers’ Association (IWA) national vice-president Harsev Bains warned that Britain is preparing for a trade deal worth billions with India, despite Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s poor human rights record.

The nationalist leader is stoking division through the Citizenship Amendment Act, the removal of statehood from the disputed Kashmir region and his marketisation of the agricultural sector.

“If the pandemic has taught us one thing, it is surely that we are not isolated islands, but part of a global network of nations,” Mr Bains told the Morning Star.

“We need to work together to renew and refresh the world for the many. The IWA calls for a progressive foreign policy representative of the people of Britain, not the ruling class.”

Shadow trade secretary Emily Thornberry reminded ministers that they had a moral obligation to make clear to other countries that if they want preferential trade deals, they need to uphold workers’ rights.

A Department for International Trade spokesperson said that no deals signed have “eroded any domestic standards in relation to workers’ rights.”