Labour softens stance on staying in single market after Brexit

Two senior Labour figures, Keir Starmer and John McDonnell, have indicated they want to keep open the options of the UK staying in the single market and customs union in comments that appear to soften the party’s stance on Brexit.

Starmer, the shadow Brexit secretary, stressed that the party’s objective was tariff-free access to the single market and no new red tape at the border for customs, as well as a deal that works for services as well as goods.

“It is vital that we retain the benefits of the single market and the customs union. How we achieve that is secondary to the outcome and should be part of the negotiations. We need to be flexible in our approach and not sweep options off the table.”

John McDonnell, the shadow chancellor, also told the BBC on Wednesday: “Our objective is tariff-free access to the market. That has been our objective since immediately after the referendum.

“The structures – whether we are in or out – are a secondary matter. We are not ruling anything out.”

Their comments appear to be a coordinated attempt to clarify Labour’s Brexit position, after Barry Gardiner, the shadow trade secretary, said staying in the customs union would be a disaster.

“As a transitional phase, a customs union agreement might be thought to have some merit. However, as an end point it is deeply unattractive,” he wrote in the Guardian.

“It would preclude us from making our own independent trade agreements with our five largest export markets outside the EU (the US, China, Japan, Australia and the Gulf states).”

Jeremy Corbyn, the Labour leader, has also said the UK would be leaving the single market at the point of Brexit, telling the BBC’s Andrew Marr Show that it is “dependent on membership of the EU”.

But since then, his spokesman has refined the position in language remarkably similar to that of Starmer and McDonnell.

“We need to be flexible in our approach and not sweep options off the table,” the spokesman said. “As we spelled out in our election manifesto, Labour believes that the Brexit negotiations should put jobs and the economy first, with the priority of tariff-free access to the European single market.

“We want to see a new partnership with the EU that maintains the benefits of both the single market and the customs union.”