On Tuesday, 13 Labour MPs supported a bill that pushes the Government to begin negotiations on joining an EU customs union.
A Liberal Democrat bill requiring the Government to begin negotiations on joining an EU customs union was backed by 13 rebel Labour MPs on Tuesday. The EU customs union creates a single tariff area for all goods imported from outside the EU, allowing the goods to move freely between member states without customs. Labour peer Harriet Harman told Sky News that while she thinks the Government may not rejoin the current EU customs union, Britain could have a customs union that would “smooth the path of better trading relations”.
The vote has passed to a second reading, prompting suggestions that the UK could join a new personalised trading partnership with the EU. Ed Davey, the Lib Dem leader, said the symbolic vote “was a historic victory” against “the economic nightmare of the Conservatives‘ broken Brexit deal”. Sir Keir Starmer recently said such a move was “not currently our policy”. Baroness Harman said: “In the run-up to the election, Keir Starmer made it quite clear that, if he was in Government, he would not be rejoining the single market or rejoining the customs union.”
The EU customs union creates a single tariff area for all goods imported from outside the EU (Image: Getty)
Sky News reported Baroness Harman thinks “we might get into a little bit of that with the customs union, because we’re not rejoining the customs union, but we could have a customs union which is better – i.e. elements of it, which smooth the path of better trading relations.”
She said: “It would just be complete fuel for Reform. I think, politically, it’s too hard to do, even if economically it looks like a lever that could be beneficial to the country.”
The EU customs union establishes a ‘common external tariff’, which means all members apply the same tariff to the majority of imported goods. The union includes 27 EU member states plus Monaco and the British Overseas Territory of Akrotiri and Dhekelia (located on Cyprus). This makes it the largest in the world. The UK left the EU customs union at the end of 2020 after the Brexit referendum.
