{"id":657824,"date":"2025-12-27T12:49:58","date_gmt":"2025-12-27T12:49:58","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/657824\/"},"modified":"2025-12-27T12:49:58","modified_gmt":"2025-12-27T12:49:58","slug":"brexit-betrayal-as-union-boss-urges-starmer-to-get-closer-to-europe-politics-news","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/657824\/","title":{"rendered":"Brexit betrayal as union boss urges Starmer to get closer to Europe | Politics | News"},"content":{"rendered":"

A union boss has urged Sir Keir Starmer<\/a> to carve out a closer relationship with the European Union<\/a>. TUC General Secretary Paul Nowak said the Labour Government should explore the possibility of entering a customs union with the bloc to boost Britain’s economic growth.<\/p>\n

He told the Guardian<\/a>: “The Government needs to do whatever it can to build the closest possible, positive, working relationship with Europe economically and politically as well.”<\/p>\n

Mr Nowak said this would include a customs union. The union boss suggested Brits would welcome an improved trading relationship with the EU given the UK’s “fickle” relations with President Donald Trump<\/a>‘s US.<\/p>\n

A customs union would see the UK gain access to tariff-free trade with the EU, while having to accept common standards for traded goods.<\/p>\n

Mr Nowak is the latest Labour heavyweight to suggest London should get closer to Brussels. Health Secretary Wes Streeting appeared to back joining a customs union<\/a> with the bloc in an interview with the Observer newspaper earlier this month.<\/p>\n

Mr Streeting said the reason why leaving the EU hit the UK so hard as a country was because of the enormous economic benefits which came with being in the single market and the customs union.<\/p>\n

He argued: “This is a country and a Government that wants a closer trading relationship with Europe. The challenge is any economic partnership we have can’t lead to a return to freedom of movement.”<\/p>\n

Mr Streeting said a “deeper trading relationship” with Europe would be a means of boosting the UK’s economic growth, in what appeared to be a direct challenge to Sir Keir, who is under pressure from his own backbenchers to change his mind on a customs union.<\/p>\n

The Prime Minister has said rejoining the EU customs union is a red line and has warned it would undo trade deals Britain has struck with the US and India.<\/p>\n

Some 13 Labour MPs voted in the Commons on December 9 in favour of proposals which would pave the way for a new customs union, the Customs Union (Duty to Negotiate) Bill. It is highly unlikely to become law.<\/p>\n

Ahead of her second Budget, Chancellor Rachel Reeves<\/a> partly blamed Brexit for damage done to Britain’s economy<\/a> as she marked a shift in Labour’s position on the UK’s exit from the bloc.<\/p>\n

Labour’s election manifesto committed the party to improving the Brexit<\/a> deal agreed between the UK and EU when Boris Johnson<\/a> was prime minister.<\/p>\n

In the first UK-EU summit since Brexit, London agreed to roll over a 2020 fishing deal, to join a security partnership with the bloc and pursue possible deals on sanitary and phytosanitary standards.<\/p>\n

Earlier in December, the Government announced the UK would rejoin the EU’s Erasmus student exchange scheme at a cost of around \u00a3570 million in 2027 alone.<\/p>\n

Conservative shadow foreign secretary Dame Priti Patel accused ministers of “throwing away billions of pounds of hard-pressed taxpayers’ money on rejoining Erasmus” as they “continue to betray Brexit”.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A union boss has urged Sir Keir Starmer to carve out a closer relationship with the European Union.…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":657825,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5174],"tags":[42553,5322,201116,1700,2000,299,5187,1699,807,201115,13195],"class_list":{"0":"post-657824","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-eu","8":"tag-brexit-latest","9":"tag-brexit-news","10":"tag-brexit-update","11":"tag-economy","12":"tag-eu","13":"tag-europe","14":"tag-european","15":"tag-european-union","16":"tag-keir-starmer","17":"tag-paul-nowak","18":"tag-trade-unions"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/115791621250138737","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/657824","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=657824"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/657824\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/657825"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=657824"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=657824"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=657824"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}