Customs union

So this is an emerging theme because Andy Burnham, the Prime Minister, said in his recent conference speech he's moved the Labour Party towards the idea that after the next election there'd be possibly a move to rejoining in some form.

It might be the Customs Union, it might be the single market, it might be the EU.

Do you think that we should have this kind of rapprochement with Europe, that we should rejoin?

I think we should, but I think we should not mess about.

Obviously, this may change in the future, but even so, you need to make sure that you are, uh, making friends where it's going to really count, and I think that the door really is ajar, and we need to push it wide open.

That's not necessarily to say we need to fully rejoin the European Union as a full member, but certainly look at joining the Customs Union or Single Market to ensure that we can have proper-

Yeah

... trade links once again.

And I do think that's a really interesting, um, sort of clearing of the waters now between Labour and the Tories or between, you know, let's say the Prime Minister and those in opposition.

Because I was talking to, um, a very senior Conservative who said to me they were really surprised when Starmer was in power that he hadn't taken this bold early step of rejoining the Customs Union.

Customs Union doesn't need to kind of cross the line on, on freedom of movement.

And this senior Conservative said it would've boosted the economy within a couple of years, so he could've done it, you know, straight out the traps in 2024, and then it would've put the Tories in this invidious position of saying, "Well, I, I know you don't like reopening the Brexit debate, but what are you gonna do? Are you gonna roll back on this? Are you gonna be anti-Customs Union? Are you going to make an enemy of the business community for the sake of your kind of red wall seats, red wall MPs, who pretty much don't exist anymore?" And I think that's the place that we have got to now.

We can see the shape of who Kemi Badenoch is trying to attract, and the people that she's trying to attract, if her conference speech is anything to go by, are the sort of pretty southern, pretty prosperous...

Uh, I mean, there's this phrase that's doing the, the rounds now, which is Waitrose woman.

[laughs] So anyway, leaving that point aside, I do think it's kind of interesting the place that the Tories have got to now.

Which is just leave it.

Burnham has reopened the big debate on our relationship with the EU.

So what might it look like? Is it the customs union, single market, or are we going all the way back into the EU? Which of those options is realistic?

The economics and politics around this is huge.

It comes at a time when there are enormous pressures, partly because of the threat from Putin to get closer to the EU.

I think that is the absolute sort of major issue over the Brexit debate now.

So let's assume then that these, you know, these three options he's talked about are things that could potentially be in the manifesto.

So we've got the customs union, the single market, or rejoining the EU in its entirety.

Are they all realistic?

Well, we will set the options out later this year.

George Osborne recently called for Britain to look at rejoining the Customs Union.

The Liberal Democrats called for the single market, uh, to be looked at as an option.

And obviously there is the big option, which would be to rejoin, but there's another option.

And given that the options he's suggesting involve at the very least rejoining the EU on the economic level, by Christmas we could have a government that is committed to completely undoing all the economic damage of Brexit.

The downside comes in the fact that the way he framed it suggests that he's not actually going to do anything to undo the economic damage of Brexit until the next election.

Because what does he actually say? He says the Lib Dems want the single market, George Osborne wants the customs union, and we could also rejoin the EU.

Now George Osborne is obviously a major figure within the Conservative Party, so it looks like he's separating out the various options for undoing Brexit among the different parties, which very much gives the idea that he's setting things up for the next election where he's gonna say, "If you want the single market, vote Lib Dem.

... gonna happen.

If, if we do, if we do join the Customs Union or, my goodness, if we rejoined the EU, this would be a big seismic political [laughs] shift, uh, that I don't think was on our bingo card for this year.

Um-

Not this quickly.

Um, and, uh, you know, I think there's gonna be a real tussle as he sets out the options.

He's kept it quite vague so far about, you know, just what, um, just what he's going to propose, whether it's rejoining the Customs Union, the single market, going back into the bloc as a whole.

Clearly he's hoping that the summit, um, in November, which we think there's now a date for-

Mm

There was, "Oh, God, here we are again.

Freedom of movement."

Well, no, Andrew Neil on News Night talking about the Customs Union-

Yeah

I should have had more chats with you back then.

And suddenly in the autumn of 2016, it looked like we were rerunning the referendum again, like we still had to stay in the Customs Union.

It looked like Theresa May didn't know what she was doing, and I was genuinely scared.

And that's when I sought out Steve Baker and found kindred spirits, wise voices, uh, veterans of the Eurosceptic cause.