Jeremy Corbyn’s criticism of the customs union

The Labour shadow cabinet have been out in full force on the airwaves this morning dropping heavy hints that Jeremy Corbyn will use a speech tomorrow to announce that his party backs the UK remaining in ‘a’ customs union  post-Brexit – which would mean the UK would be unable to strike its own free trade deals. Speaking on the Andrew Marr show, the shadow Brexit secretary said Labour’s front bench was ‘unanimous’ in its backing for striking a new deal with the EU after Brexit that would see the UK leave the customs union but then negotiate a treaty that will ‘do the work of the customs union’.

Only Corbyn hasn’t always been so keen on ‘the work of the customs union’. Just last month, Corbyn used an appearance on Peston to criticise the EU customs union for being ‘tariff heavy against quite a lot of very poor countries, and in some cases protectionist against developing countries’:

The EU Customs Union is “tariff heavy against quite a lot of very poor countries, and in some cases protectionist against developing countries”, says @jeremycorbyn