To the proud Leave voters across the Midlands, the North East, the South, Wales and all areas that backed the decision: You voted for sovereignty, you voted to take back control, and you voted for a better economic future in British hands. The Liberal Democrats understand that vision and share your desire for a thriving United Kingdom.
But across our fishing ports, industrial heartlands, and farming communities, there is a growing, painful reality. The Conservative Government’s deal failed to deliver on those promises, creating a legacy of bureaucracy, crippling costs, and a constant drag on our local economies.
Worse still, the Labour government, despite acknowledging the damage, has so far refused to take the decisive action needed to fix it. While ministers debate in private and offer small ‘resets’, they remain trapped by the same old ‘red lines’, ruling out the most effective solution and leaving our businesses in limbo.
The Liberal Democrats have therefore taken the reins to deliver. We are leading the push in Parliament to finally bring about the economic renewal you voted for.
The Shared Failure to Deliver: Why the Labour Government’s Stance Falls Short.
From Hull and Grimsby to the industrial towns of the North East and the manufacturing hubs of the West Midlands, the pain of the current trading arrangement is evident.
Manufacturing Stalled:
Local factories rely on complex ‘just-in-time’ European supply chains. The current deal means paperwork, checks, and delays that slow production and hike costs. Neither the Conservative deal nor the current Labour government’s minor ‘resets’ have addressed this fundamental friction.
Betrayal of Our Fishers:
Seafood exporters are still facing bureaucratic nightmares. The Labour government, like its predecessor, has refused to embrace the one goods based solution, a Customs Union hat would virtually eliminate this red tape.
A Failure of Political Will:
While Labour ministers have suggested that a new customs arrangement would boost growth, the party’s official position continues to stick to manifesto promises that lock them out of the most effective path to prosperity.
This lack of political will means the country continues to pay the price for a broken trading relationship, costing the UK economy an estimated £90 billion a year in lost tax receipts.
The Liberal Democrat Solution:
Keeping the Promise, Cutting the Red Tape
The Liberal Democrats believe in a pragmatic, common-sense approach that honours the decision to leave the EU while finally delivering the economic benefits you were promised. We are now the only party actively championing the change the country needs. We want a bespoke UK-EU Customs Union for one simple, powerful reason: it cuts the red tape that is strangling our local economy without forcing us back under Brussels’ political control.
This isn’t rejoining the EU. This is about making trade work again for our industrial heartlands and our ports.
Delivering a Better Deal: The Difference Between the Status Quo and a Customs Union
Under the current Conservative/Labour Status Quo, British businesses face full customs checks, complex Rules of Origin forms, and border delays causing chaos for manufacturers and increasing costs for consumers. This translates into lost trade, reduced investment, and a permanent drag on growth.
The Liberal Democrat Solution offers a clear path to fix this mess by introducing a bespoke Customs Union, delivering on three critical areas:
Stop the Bureaucracy Nightmare:
A Customs Union scraps the vast majority of routine checks and forms for goods trade, directly contrasting with the current bureaucratic hurdles that are causing chaos for businesses.
£25 Billion Boost:
By restoring fluid trade, this solution is estimated to generate at least £25 billion a year for the UK economy, a massive injection compared to the economic damage of the current arrangements.
Protecting Farmers:
Crucially, our plan specifically excludes agriculture, which maintains farmers’ flexibility to strike new deals and adapt regulations, a core goal of the Leave vote; while fixing the broken trade system for manufacturers.
A Boost to British Prosperity:
Fixing this mess is the clearest path to economic growth. As Sir Ed Davey, the Liberal Democrat Leader, has been clear:
A customs union with the EU is the single biggest step the government could take to grow our economy, put money back into people’s pockets and generate billions for our public services.
That estimated £25 billion a year is British money, created by British business, that can be invested directly back into our struggling NHS, our local schools, and the vital services you rely on across the country. This figure is supported by analysis showing that the resulting boost in GDP could generate that amount in extra tax revenue.
You voted for a stronger, more prosperous Britain. The Liberal Democrats believe this practical step is the only way to deliver it, overcoming the failure of both the Conservatives and Labour to prioritise the economic needs of the country.
* Tim Holden is a campaigner and Lib Dem activist from East Yorkshire. Founder of Liberal Action. Brexit made him question his core values and he found his 'true political home as a Liberal Democrat'.
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18 Comments
Sorry, I voted Remain but respect that the UK voted to leave the EU. I do not believe that it is democratic to consider rejoining the EU Customs Union without a referendum on that proposal since it does undermine the democratic decision taken in 2016.
So yes, let’s have a policy of seeking to join the Customs Union but please, as part of that package, let’s commit to only doing so if that step is backed by a direct popular vote (and not just assumed based on general election voting). We wear ‘Democrats’ as part our name – we must live up to that.
@Jenny
The party doesn’t have a policy of “seeking to join the Customs Union”. We have a policy of negotiating a new Customs Union between the EU and the UK.
This matters for exactly the reason you point out. That said, I’m not one of those who thinks a referendum on any such matters is needed: we are a representative democracy, and citizens delegate the decisions to the elected representatives.
Why that is a better process than referendum is shown by the whole Brexit referendum fiasco.
We simply don’t know whether or not a customs union is within the ‘terms’ (implied) of the Brexit referendum. This is the disastrous legacy of the botched Brexit referendum process itself, and – incidentally – the Lib Dem decision to enable a general election in 2019 on the false basis it would function as a form of proxy referendum on how to get out of the parliamentary deadlock the Tories had got themseves into, by stages, over three years.
I’d argue a customs union isn’t ruled out, but there are people who will argue it was.
“You voted for sovereignty, you voted to take back control, and you voted for a better economic future in British hands” and “The Conservative Government’s deal failed to deliver”.
I am somewhat concerned by this rhetoric though the economic content is good. It is based on the false premise that there was a prefect Brexit available had Boris Johnson had not been thwarted by wicked remainers (*). The truth is Britain was sold a Brexit pup by Farage and the Tory gang, and we have been immeasurably weakened, geopolitically and economically, as a result.
That is not to say joining the EU is a realistic possibility anytime soon – it is not. A better approach is to argue that in the face of a disastrous decision giving rise to a weak economy – and the threats of Trump and Putin – Britain needs new economic and military alliances with the European states as quickly as possible. A Customs Union is such an alliance.
(*) A Brexit trope found wherever 2or 3 Brexiteers are gathered together.
Ultimately as the original referendum was only advisory, everything since has been up to Parliament to make up and decide. The could have done nothing.
Having more said that, the proposal for bespoke customs union is well within the scope of the powers of Parliament. We do not vote on trade deals as a population, but Parliament does sometimes. A customs Union is an extended trade deal.
The rhetoric is designed specifically to target leave voters and help clarify that a bespoke customs union is not betrayal of the Brexit Vote; nor us it rejoining the EU. We can have the best of both.
The chances of a bespoke Customs Union is nil. In those areas you outlined that voted heavily to leave – they we’re already in that Union and felt justifiably so that it was irrelevant. Membership didn’t save on factory from closing or one job. That decline in post industrial towns continued unabated all throughout our membership. Dismal EU election turnouts anonymous Mep’s the norm..The statue quo is never a good sell.
Greg, you are very wrong there, sales of good from the UK to the EU is larger than any other market. As our closest neighbors, our industry and businesses rely on that trade.
Unfortunately, I agree that it was nit enough to prevent the collapse of some of the UKs manufacturing sectors, but that was not due to the EU. UK governments made the strategic decision to move towards a service based economy; away from the industry base.
Ar the moment every penny counts, a bespoke trade deal is a distinct possibility (Turkey-EU customs union ), If a customs union could deliver the £95 billion in additional trade; it is very much worth exposing l.
As I said the status quo is never a good sell …EU membership was seen as irrelevant to so many & who could blame them for voting as they did. Richard Cook sums it up pretty accurately on the EU vote in Wales …
“We have moved heaven and earth to try to shift the economic stats of this area, but many people are still struggling,” said Richard Crook, the head of regeneration for the Blaenau Gwent county council. “And if people don’t feel that over the last 20 years the economy has improved for them, then they’re not going to believe there has been any meaningful investment here.
2016…
Regarding accepting Brexit but blaming the bad Tory deal vrs rubbishing the whole misguided disaster – David Howarth expresses the frustrations it much better than I can:
https://substack.com/home/post/p-180948727
Here’s a prescription for Britain’s future economic policy that is worth some attention:
https://getting-out-of-the-hole.uk/
Lots for Liberal Democrats to like here –
Get to net zero effectively,
Repair the manufacturing base by joining the single market for goods
Accept increased immigration for knowledge workers
Devolve power over taxation and local investment
invest in city transport, especially outside London
support universities as key earners of export earnings and the hub of local economies for 2nd and 3rd tier cities
Rethink the investment and competition regime in services.
Reform the tax system so that it does less to inhibit work, mobility and investment
To sum up: rediscover what Britain is good at. https://getting-out-of-the-hole.uk/
There was a public vote to leave the EU, but there wasn’t a vote to leave the Customs Union. So we don’t need another referendum to rejoin the CU.
Many of us Leavers didn’t actually expect to leave the CU. There was a vote in Parliament to include remaining in the CU which was only defeated by 6 votes. Only Norman Lamb, to his credit, of the LIb Dems voted to stay in the CU.
Most of the rest abstained and Wera Hobhouse actually voted against.
Peter, I believe that the party – convinced that the CU offered a false halfway-house that would prevent the real prize of remaining in the EU being grasped, spent too much time in 2016 to 2019 trying to undermine proposals from ‘moderate’ compromisers, to force an ‘either-or’ rhetorical framing between whatever the government was proposing (which would be characterised as the worse possible deal, although in fact it kept getting worse) and the status quo ante referendum.
This has, of course, left a legacy that has fatally weakened the grounds for an incremental approach in the here-and-now, to draw the UK back into the EU orbit, and bolstered those who misleadingly claim being in a/the CU is so close to being in the EU it is a betrayal of the vote. This is nonsense in my view.
@ Matt (Bristol),
You’re right that being in the CU isn’t at all the same thing as being in the EU. Those of us who wanted to leave the EU weren’t wanting to have worsened trade relations. The danger, as we saw it, was to be increasingly incorporated into a Pan European project which was far too ambitious to possibly succeed.
Nothing that has happened in the last decade can be said to have weakened that argument.
The problem now is to have better EU trade relations, which, should IMO involve membership of of the CU, without diehard ex-remainers claiming that each incremental improvement is a step towards our eventual rejoining . That’s just going to create unhelpful opposition to what should be a beneficial process for all.
Peter, I did say ‘into the orbit’. I didn’t say ‘into the union’.
I would prefer reunion personally. But ‘a’ (bespoke) or ‘the’ CU would be a reasonable compromise and I continue to believe that if we’d had an STV referendum on all the possible options in 2016 that’s where we’d have ended up.
@ Matt (Bristol)
What does “back into the EU orbit” mean”? I understand how gravitation works with the Moon and artificial satellites but I don’t see how the UK can move around the EU 🙂
It certainly does have unhelpful negative connotations though! We want good relations with all European countries without being subservient to any of them.
Jenny Smith 15th Dec ’25 – 4:11pm:
Sorry, I voted Remain but respect that the UK voted to leave the EU.
Thank you.
I do not believe that it is democratic to consider rejoining the EU Customs Union without a referendum on that proposal since it does undermine the democratic decision taken in 2016.
Indeed it would. The decision was to “Take Back Control” of our money, laws, borders, and trade. Any form of customs union would negate all four of those.
AI Overview:
‘A customs union would be worthless in the post-European age’:
https://archive.is/23jc7
…the economic damage of the current arrangements.
Here is what really happened (not the output from a fantasyland ‘doppelgänger’ computer model)…
1. Whether starting from 2016Q2 or 2020Q2 when we left, UK GDP has outgrown the EU, Germany, and Italy, and kept in line with France (Source: ONS, EuroStat). See the graph in Always Blame Brexit
This despite having the most expensive electricity (four times the US, twice that of France), shutting down the North Sea, closing many energy intensive industries (petrochemicals, ceramics, cement all down 30%, steel 50%) and being 32nd. out of 38 in the International Tax Competitiveness Index.
2. Since Brexit, more UK companies of all sizes export to the EU, increasing from 21,800 in 2019 to 27,600 in 2022 (ONS). See the table in Telling the public the facts about the Common Understanding
3. If Brexit had significantly damaged exports to the EU their percentage of total exports would fall. They haven’t. In 2019, 46.1% of UK goods exports went to the EU. In 2024 it was 47% (ONS). See Table 4 in theTrade and investment core statistics book
All while saving the country over £116bn in membership contributions and NextGenEU funding and preventing the UK from being put into Excessive Deficit Procedure — austerity (as per 2008 to 2017).