Brexit betrayal as union boss urges Starmer to get closer to Europe | Politics | News
Union boss warned Sir Keir Starmer To establish a closer relationship with European Union. TUC General Secretary Paul Nowak said the Labor Government should explore the possibility of entering a customs union with the bloc to boost Britain’s economic growth.
he said Guard: “The government needs to do all it can to establish the closest, positive, working relationship with Europe that is economically and politically possible.”
Mr Nowak said this would include a customs union. Union boss says Brits would welcome an improved trade relationship with the EU given Britain’s “ambivalent” relationship with the President Donald TrumpUSA.
The customs union would enable the UK to gain access to duty-free trade with the EU and also agree to common standards for traded goods.
Mr Nowak is the latest Labor heavyweight to argue that London should move closer to Brussels. Health Minister Wes Streeting appeared re-join the customs union He spoke out alongside the bloc in an interview with the Observer newspaper earlier this month.
Mr Streeting said the reason leaving the EU would hit Britain so hard as a country was because of the huge economic benefits brought by the single market and customs union.
He argued: “This is a country and a Government that wants closer trading relations with Europe. The difficulty is that any economic partnership we have cannot lead to a return to freedom of movement.”
Mr Streeting said a “deeper trading relationship” with Europe would be a way to boost the UK’s economic growth; This appears to be a direct challenge for Sir Keir, who is under pressure from his own supporters to change his mind on the customs union.
The Prime Minister said rejoining the EU customs union was a red line and warned it would cancel Britain’s trade deals with the US and India.
Around 13 Labor MPs voted in favor of proposals that would pave the way for a new customs union, the Customs Union (Negotiating Duty) Bill, in the House of Commons on 9 December. It is unlikely to become law.
Ahead of her second Budget, Chancellor Rachel Reeves has partly blamed Brexit for the damage to the British economy, signaling a shift in Labour’s position on Britain leaving the bloc.
Labour’s election manifesto committed the party to improving the Brexit deal reached between the UK and the EU when Boris Johnson was prime minister.
At the first UK-EU summit since Brexit, London agreed to renew the 2020 fisheries agreement, join a security partnership with the bloc and pursue possible agreements on sanitary and phytosanitary standards.
In early December, the Government announced that the UK would rejoin the EU’s Erasmus student exchange program in 2027 alone, at a cost of around £570 million.
Conservative shadow foreign secretary Dame Priti Patel accused ministers of “wasting billions of pounds of taxpayers’ money to rejoin Erasmus” while “continuing to betray Brexit”.
