When Liam Fox launched the Grassroots Out campaign in January 2016 he stood in front of 2000 people and said how he wanted to live in “an independent sovereign nation”. Last night he was interviewed on BBC Newsnight and spoke about how changing British Laws to allow chlorine-washed poultry to be imported from the US was a minor detail of his trade negotiations which are still yet to begin. The problem with this is that he is in effect signalling that independence and sovereignty is a matter that will be wrangled over not in the UK Parliament but in closed discussions with US negotiators. As with all such deals there will be a package of proposals, some of which will be on the margins of the deal and some of which will be crucial to the deal as a whole. The British Parliament will get a chance to pore over the full details, as they do with every change from the EU Parliament. Then there will be the a second iteration and Mr Fox will fly back to the USA and there will be a second round of talks. Eventually he will stand up in Parliament and argue that whilst some elements are not what we want as a nation, that the overall deal is a good one and we should sign up to it. There will be a vote and the Government along with the DUP and other MPs will ensure that the deal is passed. The only difference between this and the process with the EU as things currently stand is that there will be no Transatlantic Parliament through which democracy will ensure our votes matter. If putting a few British farmers out of business is the price to pay for such a deal, it will be done. Of course the Chlorine washed chicken is probably an outrider that is expected to fail the test set by Parliament. However what Mr Fox is about now is no different to what went on 40 years ago when the EU was being established. In 40 years time his successors will no doubt be the ones to stand up and blame him for the mess we are in, just as todays Euro Sceptics blame Ted Heath for our problems over the EU. Perhaps by then we will have got used to the taste of chlorine washed US chicken!