Jezza’s trade plan could save Britain
When I mention Brexit in Hull, I tend to get the same reaction. People’s eyes glaze over and occasionally roll. Most just want the Government to get on with it.
In my city, 66 per cent voted to leave. They didn’t really understand the single European market but they did know it led to immigration from Eastern European countries. And they didn’t like it one bit.
But this week we saw an important political decision that could shape the future of this country and its people for decades to come.
A decision that could make the difference between our economy crashing and services collapsing – or Britain protecting livelihoods and delivering real economic power across our nations and regions.
Jeremy Corbyn’s pledge that a Labour government would negotiate for a bespoke customs union – so we can still trade British goods in the EU without tariffs – is vital to Britain’s future prosperity.
Right now, 44 per cent of our trade is with the EU. It generates £240billion a year. If we want to protect hundreds of thousands of manufacturing jobs, especially in the car industry, a tariff-free trading relationship is vital.
The Tories’ alternative is no customs union at all.
In the fantasy world of the Brexiteers, Britain will be able to strike trade deals with the rest of the world, like China and the US, that more than make up for losing our European business.
Having negotiated with the US over the Kyoto climate treaty, and dealt with the Chinese as chair of the UK’s China Taskforce, I know this is as likely as Hull City winning the Champions League.
These trade deals take years to set up and invariably mean we have to compromise to the detriment of our people. Big healthcare firms will successfully lobby through the US President to get greater access to our NHS – leading to further privatisation.
Trump wants to start a trade war over steel imports. And China will only want the biggest markets.
Faced with a customs union of 500 million customers or a country with 60 million, it doesn’t take a genius to realise who they’ll favour.
As the former chief civil servant at the Department for International Trade wryly noted this week, avoiding a customs union with the EU is like giving up a three-course meal for the promise of a packet of crisps in the future.
Then there’s Northern Ireland. One of Labour’s proudest achievements was the Good Friday Agreement, which ended Ulster’s decades of death and terrorism. I saw this first-hand as a young MP, when the IRA car bomb that killed Tory MP Airey Neave blew up a hundred yards from me at the House of Commons. Failure to be in a customs union would mean the return of a hard border on the island of Ireland.
Boris Johnson’s madcap comparison between the Irish border and the London boroughs of Camden and Westminster is as daft as his plan for an English Channel bridge.
And finally, there’s the promise of what we can do with the power and resources we get back from Europe.
The Tories want to keep them in Westminster. But people voted to take back control from bureaucrats in Brussels, not leave it with unelected Whitehall civil servants.
Labour’s pledge to push these out to every nation and region, to rebalance our country, is spot on.
Politics is all about choices. Jeremy is giving the people a real choice over our future relationship with the EU. The choice could come sooner rather than later. May wrongly thought Brexit would be her trump card at the last election.
If Tory Remainer MPs back Labour’s plan for a customs union in an upcoming Commons vote, it could lead to her downfall – and lead Corbyn into Downing Street.