Back to 2018: the blasted EU Customs Union

Joining the Customs Union is a terrible idea. And if Labour voices aren't willing to honestly argue to rejoin the EU, they are merely bleating about trade frictions and parading their ignorance.

Plan A+ - a real plan to trade with the rest of the world

Do Labour ministers and MPs have a cunning plan or are they merely ignorant?

That is the question emerging from the past week: ministers complaining about Brexit damage, the Deputy Prime Minister floating the benefits of a customs union with the EU and the Prime Minister hastily ruling that out. Not a single voice asking the obvious question: would a customs union even solve the problems they claim to care about?

The answer is no. It would not. So, either Labour figures are demoralising the public as part of a coherent campaign to rejoin the EU or they are fruitlessly bleating about matters of which they know little. Either way, it’s bad but given how quickly this government has collapsed into parody, it seems most likely they are being hopeless, again, by maintaining their longstanding position of opposition to both being outside the EU and rejoining it.

This political folly will harm the economy and lead us ineluctably back to no deal after Labour lose the next election. It is maddening to see this idiocy unfurl.