The Labour Manifesto was clear. The next Labour government would not put us back into the Single market, or into the Customs Union and open borders with freedom of movement.
We read that the UK government think they could create a new single market area of the EU and the UK. The EU as the larger party will say the way to do that is for the UK to join the EU ‘s single market. They will not allow changes of rules, or joint decision taking or opt outs. They would also demand a big UK budget contribution, freedom of movement and other EU controls over the UK. All this should be a non starter.
The government is mad to think accepting EU rules, taxes and charges would boost our trade. We import much more than we export to the EU, whereas our trade with non EU is much better balanced. Being closer to EU rules and taxes would be used by the EU to boost their sales to us by more than we could boost to them, reducing our net jobs, incomes and wealth. It is bad to want to sell out in this way, wrongly pretending it is not breaking a Manifesto promise .
What does the government think we could sell more of? It is going to ban us selling petrol and diesel cars, new oil and gas, and make it dearer to sell high energy using products. These are all things we sold a lot of. It is giving away much of our fish, preventing expansion of our industry and more exports. We are fortunate indeed that the EU seems to have been wise and turned down this proposal.
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