Former British chancellor George Osborne has warned that the UK economy has “fallen off a cliff” since Brexit, arguing that rejoining the EU customs union would offer the quickest path towards recovery.
Mr Osborne, who stepped down as chancellor after serving in David Cameron’s cabinet during the referendum period, said Britain needed to restore stronger economic ties with the European Union.
- Advertisement -
“Brexit has been a mess,” he told The Independent.
“Britain has basically gone off a cliff.
While acknowledging that reversing course would be challenging a decade after the Brexit referendum, Mr Osborne said closer links with Europe could help revive economic growth.
“I would rejoin the customs union,” he said. “It’s a quite simple thing to do. That was never part of the Brexit debate. No one knew we were leaving it and it has had a devastating impact on trade.
“The reason we weren’t supposed to be in the customs union — according to the Brexiteers — was these great trade deals we were going to strike with America. That all looks pretty fanciful now.
“People now realise you can’t look at Britain’s growth problem without beginning to think, ‘how can we revive trade with the continent, how can we get investment?’.
“If I was Andy Burnham, I don’t see why you wouldn’t rejoin the customs union.
“It’s a pretty straightforward decision because, unlike (rejoining) the single market, it does not require you to accept the free movement of people — which is a pretty complicated issue to sell to people in Britain at the moment.”
