In his biggest speech on Brexit since the referendum, the Labour leader will say he is ready to sacrifice the UK’s ability to strike trade deals outside the EU
Jeremy Corbyn was accused of ‘selling snake oil’ today as he prepares to set out plans that would keep Britain shackled to the EU.
In his biggest speech on Brexit since the referendum, the Labour leader will say he is ready to sacrifice the UK’s ability to strike new trade deals in return for staying in a customs union with the EU.
He is also expected to make clear that free movement rules should continue almost unchanged – despite pressure to curb immigration having been one of the main issues in the 2016 vote.
The shift by Labour has already caused fury among the party’s Brexiteers, and was branded nakedly political by Tories, as it paves the way for a titanic Commons showdown that could throw the government into turmoil.
Senior Labour figures previously dismissed the prospect of joining a customs union with the EU as it would prevent Britain exploiting the benefits of being outside the bloc.
In his speech in Coventry this morning, Mr Corbyn will pay lip service to the Brexit vote saying he ‘respects the result of the referendum’.
But he will add: ‘Every country that is geographically close to the EU without being an EU member state, whether it’s Turkey, Switzerland, or Norway, has some sort of close relationship to the EU, some more advantageous than others.
‘Britain will need a bespoke relationship of its own. Labour would negotiate a new and strong relationship with the single market that includes full tariff-free access and a floor under existing rights, standards and protections.’
Despite the EU insisting it will not accept ‘cherry picking’ of single market rules, the Labour leader will demand the right for the UK to tear up the EU’s state aid rules ‘to ensure we can deliver our ambitious economic programme’.
Brexit Secretary David Davis said Mr Corbyn ‘seems certain to break the commitments he made to Labour voters at the last election’.
‘If it looks like snake oil, and it smells like snake oil, don’t expect it to make you feel better,’ he wrote in the Daily Telegraph.
‘The customs plan would surrender control over our trade defences.
‘Membership of a customs union, with a common commercial policy, gives the EU the exclusive right to put in place remedies to tackle anticompetitive practices. This means that inside a customs union the UK would not be able to take action on the trade challenges we face.’
Pro-Brexit Labour MPs warned their leader he risked betraying millions of party supporters who voted to take Britain out of the EU.
Former minister Frank Field said keeping the country shackled to Brussels would be ‘to rat on the people’s decision to leave’.
The Labour leader (pictured on a visit to Stourbridge over the weekend) is expected to say he will sacrifice the ability to strike new trade deals in order to keep Britain locked in an EU customs union – and allow free movement to continue
Kate Hoey, another former Labour minister, said: ‘I hope Jeremy realises that to divert from the recent manifesto would be a hammer blow to those Labour supporters all across the country who came back and voted for us precisely because of our unequivocal position on leaving the EU.’
Labour Eurosceptic Graham Stringer said it was vital to keep the party’s pledge to make a clean break with the EU, adding: ‘Anything less would be a betrayal.’
But pro-EU Labour MP Chuka Umunna welcomed what he called ‘a clear change of position’.
In today’s speech in the West Midlands, Mr Corbyn is expected to confirm that Labour would keep Britain in the customs union after Brexit, closing the door on the dream of taking back control of Britain’s trade policy.
He will demand a ‘bespoke’ deal that would keep Britain in the single market in all but name, while demanding the right for a future Labour government to tear up EU competition rules to subsidise failing nationalised industries.
Mr Corbyn will signal that Labour is ready to join forces with Tory Remainers over the customs union in the hope of forcing a Commons defeat that could topple Theresa May.
He will also leave the door open to a second referendum on the final Brexit deal that could cause fresh chaos, and accept that they should only be minor curbs to free movement rules.
The move comes barely six months after Mr Corbyn’s shadow international trade secretary Barry Gardiner warned that staying in a customs union after Brexit would be ‘a disaster’.
Solicitor general Robert Buckland accused Mr Corbyn of changing tack in search of ‘short term advantage’.
‘I was a massive Remainer. But if you vote to leave, you vote to leave the whole shebang,’ he told BBC Radio 4’s Westminster Hour.
‘This is about Jeremy Corbyn and the Labour leadership seeing a short-term advantage by potentially winning a vote in the House of Commons, and therefore jumping on a bandwagon … It’s politics, that’s what this is about.’
Mr Corbyn and shadow chancellor John McDonnell are lifelong Eurosceptics who have railed against the EU and its customs union for years.
In 2005, Mr Corbyn said EU tariffs were destroying agriculture in the developing world, adding: ‘The practice is simply crazy and must be stopped.’
But he has come under intense pressure from Labour members and the unions to soften the party’s line on Brexit. Labour strategists also believe the shift could wreck Mrs May’s hopes of keeping the fragile Tory coalition on Brexit together.
Mr McDonnell is said to have told Labour’s top team that inflicting a Commons defeat on Mrs May over the customs union is the ‘best chance’ of an early election.
Sir Keir said: ‘The crunch time is now coming for the Prime Minister because the majority in Parliament does not back her approach to a customs union.’
Tory MP Nadine Dorries warned Remainers in her own party not to fall into Mr Corbyn’s cynical trap. She said: ‘Millions of Labour voters took Corbyn at his word when he promised to respect the referendum result and help deliver Brexit.
‘Those same voters will punish him and any Tory Europhile rebels who are considering backing him.’
First Secretary of State David Lidington will today warn devolved governments not to use Brexit as an excuse to break up the UK. He will pledge to ensure most EU powers relating to devolved areas will be transferred to Edinburgh, Cardiff and Belfast, rather than being hoarded by Westminster.
But Mr Lidington will warn the new powers must not be used to sever ties holding the UK together, warning this would make the whole country ‘weaker and poorer’.
WHY DOES THE CUSTOMS UNION MATTER AND WHAT COULD HAPPEN POST-BREXIT?
When Britain stays in a custom union with Brussels (the European Commissions headquarters is pictured) is one of the main points of Brexit contention
The customs union has emerged as a crucial battleground in the struggle over Brexit.
The customs arrangements could decide the fate of the overall deal – as the UK has already said it will ensure there is no hard border between Northern Ireland and the Republic.
Here are the main options for what could happen after Britain leaves the bloc.
Staying in the EU customs union
The arrangements allow EU states to exchange goods without tariffs, and impose common tariffs on imports from outside the bloc.
But they also prevent countries from striking deals outside the union.
Theresa May has repeatedly made clear that the UK will be leaving the customs union.
Forging a new customs union
Some MPs and the Labour leadership have raised the idea of creating a new customs union with the EU.
This could be looser than the existing arrangements, but still allow tariff free trade with the bloc.
However, many Eurosceptics believe it is impossible to be in a union without hampering the UK’s ability to strike trade deals elsewhere.
They also complain that it would mean accepting the EU’s ‘protectionist’ tariffs against other parts of the world in areas like agriculture.
Downing Street sources confirmed last night that this option is off the table.
A customs partnership
Less formal than a union, this proposal would seek to cherry pick the elements that facilitate tariff-free trade – without binding the UK’s hands when it comes to deals with other countries.
One possibility could be keeping the UK and EU connected for trade in goods, but allowing divergence for the services sector.
The partnership option was floated by the government in a position paper last year.
‘Highly streamlined’ customs
This scenario would be a ‘bare minimum’ customs arrangement between the EU and UK.
New technology would be deployed alongside a simple agreement to minimise friction.
But there are fears that this could hit trade, and it is unclear how the system would work with a ‘soft’ Irish border.
How has Jeremy Corbyn’s position on the EU shifted over time?
Jeremy Corbyn, pictured on a march in 2000, is a lifelong Eurosceptic
Jeremy Corbyn’s own words show how his attitude to the EU has shifted dramatically.
January 1993: ‘The European Central Bank will undermine any social objective that any Government would wish to carry out.’
March 1993: ‘What powers do we have to do anything about the fraud in EC institutions on… the Common Agricultural Policy…?
‘People… pay taxes and much of that money seems to find its way into the hands of the Mafia or into grandiose, unwanted and often badly built construction projects…’
May 1993: ‘The Maastricht treaty takes away from national parliaments the power to set economic policy and hands it over to an unelected set of bankers who will impose the economic policies of price stability, deflation and high unemployment…’
May 2005: ‘It is morally wrong that the US … and the EU Commission pay farmers to overproduce.
‘They then use taxpayers’ money to buy the overproduction …it is then shipped at enormous public cost across the seas to be dumped as maize on African societies. It’s simply crazy… ’
2008: ‘The project has always been to create a huge freemarket Europe, with everlimiting powers for national parliaments and an increasingly powerful common foreign and security policy.’
June 2015: ‘There is a real risk that Greece leaves both the eurozone and the EU. Its future would be uncertain, but at least it could be its own.’
June 24, 2016, day of the Brexit result: ‘The British people have made their decision. We must respect that result and Article 50 has to be invoked now so that we negotiate an exit from European Union.
‘Obviously there has to be strategy but the whole point of the referendum was that the public would be asked their opinion. They’ve given their opinion. It is up for Parliament to now act on that opinion.’
Brexiteers get close to the PM at the Chequers Summit
