It emboldened\u00a0Starmer and his lieutenants. Rachel\u00a0Reeves, the U.K.\u2019s chief finance minister,\u00a0used her speech at the Labour Party conference in Liverpool to talk up the benefits of improved cross-border mobility for the economy. \u00a0<\/p>\n
Ahead of last week’s difficult budget stuffed with tax\u00a0rises,\u00a0she waded in further, damning the effects of a “chaotic Brexit.”<\/p>\n
While the new rhetoric has yet to be backed up by a shift in policy,\u00a0there are signs that some of Starmer\u2019s close allies are starting to think bigger.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Rejoining the EU customs union was\u00a0reportedly raised\u00a0as\u00a0an option\u00a0by Starmer’s economic advisor\u00a0ahead of the budget\u00a0\u2014\u00a0but was rejected.\u00a0\u201cThere are definitely people who have been pushing at this for a long time,\u201d one person with knowledge of conversations in government said.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cI don\u2019t think that will be that surprising to people, because if your primary goal allegedly is growth then that\u2019s one of the easiest levers you can pull. Most economists would agree \u2014 it\u2019s the politics\u00a0that\u2019s\u00a0stopping it.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
Pressed on the prospect of Britain’s applying to rejoin the customs union on Wednesday, Health Secretary Wes Streeting did not explicitly rule out the idea but stressed the government’s policy was about “new partnerships and new relationships, not relitigating the past.”<\/p>\n
If Starmer opts for\u00a0a risky manifesto-busting push to\u00a0rejoin\u00a0the\u00a0customs\u00a0union, diplomats say even that is unlikely to be a quick fix for the British PM.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cIt would take time. Just consider how slow has been so\u00a0far\u00a0the progress on SPS, ETS and Erasmus,\u201d the first diplomat quoted above said. \u201cAs of now, the U.K. needs the EU to spur its growth, not the other way around.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"It emboldened\u00a0Starmer and his lieutenants. Rachel\u00a0Reeves, the U.K.\u2019s chief finance minister,\u00a0used her speech at the Labour Party conference…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":610826,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[5174],"tags":[5109,802,1194,8514,6852,33,51827,2000,299,5187,1699,474,1195,1198,5733,810,384,46,2343,48,332,6861,2824,1200,1201,16,15,335,3595],"class_list":["post-610825","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-eu","tag-boris-johnson","tag-brexit","tag-budget","tag-customs","tag-customs-union","tag-elections","tag-erasmus","tag-eu","tag-europe","tag-european","tag-european-union","tag-finance","tag-growth","tag-kemi-badenoch","tag-mobility","tag-nick-thomas-symonds","tag-nigel-farage","tag-policy","tag-research","tag-rights","tag-russia","tag-single-market","tag-tanks","tag-tax","tag-trade","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-war-in-ukraine","tag-wes-streeting"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/115659245080876556","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/610825","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=610825"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/610825\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/610826"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=610825"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=610825"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=610825"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}