RED TAPE

Theresa May will press for Britain to enter into a temporary customs deal with the European Union in 2019 to avoid chaos on the day after Brexit.

The government will today announce the plan as it begins to flesh out its negotiating stance in talks over Britain’s future relationship with the bloc.

Ministers have been warned that the imposition of customs checks at ports risks economic damage, huge delays and even lengthy motorway queues.

To avoid that prospect, ministers are proposing an “interim period” of “close association” between the UK and the EU customs union under which goods can be bought and sold tariff-free.

One possible approach, they say, would be to operate a temporary UK-EU customs union.

During this period, the government would attempt to hammer out new trade deals with major trading partners, including forging a new relationship with the EU.

The government believes it can broker a “streamlined” deal with the bloc, building on the existing lack of tariffs within the union.

The proposal will be spelt

SIR VINCE CABLE out in the first of several government papers published in coming weeks which will set out Mrs May’s approach to Brexit.

Ministers argue that the move would give businesses more time to prepare for the eventual new customs regime.

The Department for Exiting the European Union, headed by Brexit Secretary David Davis, said its goal is “to secure as frictionless trade as possible with the EU alongside the ability to forge trade deals around the world”.

It said the government wanted to demonstrate Britain’s “desire to ensure our exit from the EU is smooth, orderly and successful”.

The proposal strikes a different note from the joint declaration by Chancellor Philip Hammond and Liam Fox, the International Trade Secretary, at the weekend that the UK will be “outside the customs union” during the transition as it will become a ‘third country’

“The only way to guarantee ‘free and frictionless’ trade withtheeuistostay in the customs union and single market. Anything else risks creating more red tape for businesses”