David Lammy has suggested rejoining the EU customs union could help boost UK economic growth, marking the strongest pro-EU intervention yet from a senior minister.
The deputy prime minister – who is also the justice secretary – told the News Agents podcast on Wednesday it was “self-evident that leaving the European Union badly damaged our economy, took us out of the market economy and created serious friction, that untruths were being peddled”.
“It’s why every single day that I was foreign secretary, I returned to the subject of our relationship with the European Union,” he said.
Pressed specifically if he thinks the UK should join a customs union, Lammy initially dodged the question before saying: “That is not currently our policy.
“That’s not currently where we are. But you can see countries like Turkey with a customs union seemingly benefitting and seeing growth in their economy and again, that’s self-evident.”
But he carefully added that his remarks are “subject to collective responsibility”, meaning he has to speak in line with the prime minister.
Liberal Democrat Dr Al Pinkerton asked the prime minister’s chief secretary Darren Jones about Lammy’s comments in the Commons on Thursday.
Jones replied: “I have to confess I have not listened to the News Agents podcast he refers to, but what is self-evident is what is said in this House and not in podcasts.”
He pointed to Keir Starmer’s repeated refusal to rejoin the EU customs union on Wednesday after the government was urged to join to consider it in a bid to improve growth.
Baroness Shafik, the PM’s chief economics adviser, reportedly called for closer EU ties in the run up to the Budget.
Lammy’s comments come as Labour ministers are becoming much more outspoken about the negative consequences of Brexit.
Starmer himself launched an outspoken attack on the UK’s EU exit earlier this week, and warned against calls for the UK to quit Nato and the European Convention of Human Rights next.
He noted that the country is still “dealing with the consequences” of the vote to leave the EU in 2016.
In his annual Lady Mayor’s Banquet speech at the Guildhall in London, Starmer said Brexit had damaged the economy and led to “the degradation of political debate”.
Health secretary Wes Streeting also said on Wednesday that Labour should undo the “economic damage done by Brexit”.
Similarly, chancellor Rachel Reeves said back in October: “Things like austerity, the cuts to capital spending and Brexit have had a bigger impact on our economy than even was projected back then.
“That’s why we are unashamedly rebuilding our relations with the European Union to reduce some of those costs that were, in my view, needlessly added to businesses since 2016 and since we formally left a few years ago.”