Liam Fox will say remaining in a customs union with the EU post-Brexit would leave Britain in a worse position than it currently holds, calling the prospect “a sell-out of Britain’s national interests”.
In a speech on Tuesday, part of the Conservative government’s Road to Brexit series of cabinet speeches laying out the future of the UK after leaving the EU, Fox will attack Labour’s pledge to keep Britain in a customs union and seek influence in EU trade deals.
Flexibility will be key to any future trade policy, he will say, including deals with groups of nations and individual ones. “We will consider multi-country alliances of the like-minded right down to bilateral arrangements,” he will say.
“To do this, we need the ability to exercise a fully independent trade policy. We have to maximise overall trading opportunities for the UK and secure the prosperity of our people.”
Agreeing to remain in a customs union with the EU would make Britain an unattractive trading partner and prevent future trade deals with non-EU nations, he will say.
“As rule takers, without any say in how the rules were made, we would be in a worse position than we are today. It would be a complete sell out of Britain’s national interests,” Fox will say, in a speech at Bloomberg.
“A customs union would remove the bulk of incentives for other countries to enter into comprehensive free trade agreements with the UK if we were unable to alter the rules in whole sectors of our economy, as Turkey has now discovered.”
“The inevitable price of trying to negotiate with one arm tied behind our back is that we would become less attractive to potential trade partners and forfeit many of the opportunities that would otherwise be available to us.”
The speech follows confirmation by the Labour leader, Jeremy Corbyn, that it would seek “a new, comprehensive UK-EU customs union” after Brexit, opening a path for Labour to formally back a joint backbench Labour-Tory amendment to the forthcoming trade bill on the customs union.
Theresa May is likely to come under increasing pressure in the coming weeks before the vote on the bill to offer some concession to potential pro-EU Tory rebels, to ensure she is not defeated on the amendment.
Fox will argue that, within a customs union, the UK would have to accept EU trade rules and limit the UK’s ability to develop our trade and development policies with poorer nations.
He said there was a tendency among nations to “cling to the ‘known’ trading mechanisms more suited to the structures of the past than the digital age of the future”.
“The ability to react quickly to new developments, to explore new opportunities and to nurture fledgling industries that will be the key to growth and prosperity in the coming years,” he will say.
“Our approach should not be premised on simply identifying how much of our current relationship we want to keep, but what we need to prosper in a rapidly changing global environment.”
