Minister repeatedly corrected live on air after making Brexit trade point

A minister was corrected in a live interview multiple times after making a point about Brexit and trade.

Sky News's Ed Conway asked Kemi Badenoch, the business and trade secretary how trade with Italy was going since Brexit and ended up in an awkward back and forth in which neither could agree.

"As I understand it, it has gone up," Badenoch said and cited figures regarding the UK's trade with the EU as a whole. Conway said it had gone down with Italy by about 12 to 16 per cent.

"It depends on what you are looking at," Badenoch replied, claiming things look different when measured by volume, value and by the inflation figures used.

"It's always done," Conway despaired.

Sign up to our free Indy100 weekly newsletter

She was talking after signing a new "trade partnership" with Italy - the first with a European nation post-Brexit. The deal makes no change to the UK and Italy's key trading regulations - from tariffs and quotas to customs rules but the government has said it will make trade easier.

Next Badenoch tried to move away from Brexit and said trade is also impacted by other factors including the pandemic and Russia's war with Ukraine.

She said focussing on Brexit rather than "new issues" was "frustrating".

"I'm not here to waste time," she said.

Some interviews are harder to watch than others...

indy100 has contacted the department for trade to comment on this story.

Have your say in our news democracy. Click the upvote icon at the top of the page to help raise this article through the indy100 rankings.