MPs have voted to rejoin the customs union, narrowly defeating the government, after a dozen Labour members supported a LibDem proposal. Dr Al Pinkerton MP for Surrey Heath, brought forward the Bill calling for the government to enter into negotiations with the EU. It caused a bit of a stir in the newspapers and among the anti-Brexit campaigners, but it will have zero impact on government policy. Starmer reiterated that his manifesto pledge was not to join the CU or the single market, and he’s sticking to it no matter how much staying out of both damages our growth prospects or weakens public services by cutting tax revenues. It’s as if he’s absolutely determined to get voted out at the next election.
Beyond being an indicator of how parliament is still divided on the issue, either ideologically or because of the party whips, and it being a bit of an embarrassment for Kier Starmer, it was a non-event and will soon fade into history.
But I don’t think joining the customs union would help that much anyway.
If we go back to the late 1980s, when Lord Cockburn and Mrs Thatcher were working to create the single market, the twelve member states (the original six of Belgium, France, West Germany, Italy, Luxembourg, Netherlands plus Denmark, Ireland, the UK, Greece, Spain, and Portugal) had come to appreciate that the customs union hadn't prevented border delays, which were still common across Europe.
After the EC was created in 1958, it took ten years before the Common External Tariff was agreed, but anyone crossing an internal border inside the Community, even in the 1980s, was still being delayed, often for long periods. They may not have been forced to pay additional tariffs, but different product regulations and different requirements for providing services meant declarations, paperwork and border checks. Border queues were still a common and predictable feature of travel and trade.
The European Council, in March 1985, asked the Commission to begin work to create the single market. A White Paper, Completing the Internal Market, proposed by Lord Cockfield, was published in June with 300 legislative proposals, including measures to eliminate most physical, technical and fiscal non-tariff barriers. By 31 December 1992, the single market had been implemented.
It was that which really made the difference to intra-EU trade. The CU was only a necessary, but very small, first step. Dr Pinkerton's bill was purely symbolic. And even if it wasn't, it is not really the answer to spurring economic growth through increased trade.
By an odd coincidence, a couple of days earlier, Donald Trump had put out one of his famous rants on Truth Social, his spectacularly ill-named social media platform, which has some bearing on this whole issue.
Note, "You can’t expect a company to get 50 Approvals every time they want to do something. THAT WILL NEVER WORK!" This must be a rare example of statements that have passed Trump’s lips, fact-checked later and found to be true.
It’s as if a dim light was suddenly and momentarily switched on in the dark recesses of Trump’s cortex. A flicker of something that may even have looked like logic. What if the USA had no internal barriers to interstate trade? The US states are already in a customs union, but Trump has accidentally stumbled across the problems that arise when you have fifty pointlessly different standards for almost everything.
It is the very problem Lord Cockfield and the EU were trying (and succeeding) to resolve forty years ago. The irony is that this comes hard on the heels of Trump's new National Security Strategy, which attacks the very idea of the EU!!
The single market is perhaps the greatest invention after language and sliced bread. Sovereign nations agree to work together to promote free trade, sensible common environmental and employment standards, peace, understanding and prosperity. What’s not to like?
America will get there in the end. I think it was Churchill who said: “Americans can always be trusted to do the right thing, once all other possibilities have been exhausted.” And so will we.
At the moment, we are still working through 'other possibilities' and finding none.
