Revealed: Day Brexit Secretary praised EU’s single market

David Davis ‘t aken hostage by hard Right’ after saying we should stay in customs union

BREXIT Secretary David Davis was last night accused of being ‘taken hostage by the hard Right’ after remarks emerged in which he praised the European single market and backed staying in the customs union.

Mr Davis, pictured, has been castigated by MPs for leading the UK out of both trading arrangements without clear contingency plans in place.

But he once hailed the market as a ‘success’ and said staying in the customs union would spare British businesses from punitive tariffs.

Last night Labour’s Chuka Umunna seized on the remarks, saying that they ‘should shake the faith of this Tory Government in the hard-Brexit path they are pursuing’.

Allies of Mr Davis hit back, accusing Mr Umunna of ‘raking over’ old speeches. Mr Davis made his remarks in November 2012, two months before David Cameron announced that he would hold an EU referendum if the Conservatives won the 2015 General Election.

During the course of an otherwise broadly Eurosceptic speech, Mr Davis conceded that the European Union ‘has enjoyed s o me successes, namely the single market and of course the enlargement which has brought a number of countries with troubled histories into the modern, democratic world’.

On the customs union, which allows free movement of goods within its borders, he said: ‘My preference would be that we should remain within the customs union of the EU [ even though we would] give up some freedoms in terms of negotiating our trading arrangements with third countries.

‘The advantage would be that our manufacturers would not face complex and punitive rules-of-origin tariffs.’

Since taking up his Cabinet post, Mr Davis has admitted that if the UK leaves the customs union without a fresh deal with Brussels then British carmakers will face 10 per cent tariffs, while dairy and meat producers would be hit with levies of between 30 and 40 per cent on exports to the EU.

Earlier this year, MPs on the Commons Foreign Affairs Select Committee castigated Mr Davis for refusing to discuss what Government planning had been carried out for a ‘no-deal’ Brexit in 2019. But he said that, at this stage, such plans would be ‘guesswork’.

Mr Umunna, who chairs Vote Leave Watch, which pledges to hold Brexiteers to promises made during the referendum campaign, said: ‘The 2012 version of David Davis recognised the real problems that could emerge if we leave the customs union. Businesses will be hit by “punitive” rules of origin, which vastly increase tariffs and red tape on companies trying to export to the EU.

‘The Brexit Secretary needs to explain why he has changed his mind, why we should be leaving the single market and customs union when he admits they have been “successes”, and what evidence his department has that doing so will not damage our economy. David Davis’s U-turn suggests that… he, like the Prime Minister, has been taken hostage by the hard Right of the Tory Party.’

A source close to Mr Davis criticised Mr Umunna for ‘raking over’ a speech made when he was a backbencher.

The source said: ‘Mr Davis set out a number of different ways that the UK might thrive if it chose to leave the EU. He is now a member of a Government that is determined to respect the referendum result, build a new partnership with the EU and forge new trading links with the rest of the world rather than spend its time having the same old arguments.’