TUC boss Paul Nowak says the Labour Government should explore entering the EU’s customs union.
Keir Starmer is under mounting pressure to betray Brexit (Image: Getty)
A union boss has urged Sir Keir Starmer to carve out a closer relationship with the European Union. TUC General Secretary Paul Nowak said the Labour Government should explore the possibility of entering a customs union with the bloc to boost Britain’s economic growth.
He told the Guardian: “The Government needs to do whatever it can to build the closest possible, positive, working relationship with Europe economically and politically as well.”
Mr Nowak said this would include a customs union. The union boss suggested Brits would welcome an improved trading relationship with the EU given the UK’s “fickle” relations with President Donald Trump‘s US.
Paul Nowak wants Starmer to pursue the closest possible, positive, working relationship with Europe (Image: Getty)
A customs union would see the UK gain access to tariff-free trade with the EU, while having to accept common standards for traded goods.
Mr Nowak is the latest Labour heavyweight to suggest London should get closer to Brussels. Health Secretary Wes Streeting appeared to back joining a customs union with the bloc in an interview with the Observer newspaper earlier this month.
Mr Streeting said the reason why leaving the EU hit the UK so hard as a country was because of the enormous economic benefits which came with being in the single market and the customs union.
He argued: “This is a country and a Government that wants a closer trading relationship with Europe. The challenge is any economic partnership we have can’t lead to a return to freedom of movement.”
Mr Streeting said a “deeper trading relationship” with Europe would be a means of boosting the UK’s economic growth, in what appeared to be a direct challenge to Sir Keir, who is under pressure from his own backbenchers to change his mind on a customs union.
The Prime Minister has said rejoining the EU customs union is a red line and has warned it would undo trade deals Britain has struck with the US and India.
Some 13 Labour MPs voted in the Commons on December 9 in favour of proposals which would pave the way for a new customs union, the Customs Union (Duty to Negotiate) Bill. It is highly unlikely to become law.
Ahead of her second Budget, Chancellor Rachel Reeves partly blamed Brexit for damage done to Britain’s economy as she marked a shift in Labour’s position on the UK’s exit from the bloc.
Labour’s election manifesto committed the party to improving the Brexit deal agreed between the UK and EU when Boris Johnson was prime minister.
In the first UK-EU summit since Brexit, London agreed to roll over a 2020 fishing deal, to join a security partnership with the bloc and pursue possible deals on sanitary and phytosanitary standards.
Earlier in December, the Government announced the UK would rejoin the EU’s Erasmus student exchange scheme at a cost of around £570 million in 2027 alone.
Conservative shadow foreign secretary Dame Priti Patel accused ministers of “throwing away billions of pounds of hard-pressed taxpayers’ money on rejoining Erasmus” as they “continue to betray Brexit”.
