Pacific trade deal is more useful to Joe Biden than it is to the UK’s economy

Trade minister Kemi Badenoch was forced to defend what she described as a ‘dynamic’ deal. Photograph: Victoria Jones/PA

Tory MPs hailed the UK’s entry last week into the Indo-Pacific trading bloc as a major step on the road to re-establishing Britain as a pioneer of free trade.

It was a coup for Rishi Sunak, said David Jones, the deputy chairman of the European Research Group of Tory Eurosceptics, who was excited to be aligned with “some of the most dynamic economies in the world”.