Brexit has sent the UK economy “off a cliff,” former chancellor George Osborne has said, arguing that rejoining the EU customs union would offer the quickest path back to growth.
Mr Osborne, who quit as chancellor after serving in David Cameron’s cabinet at the time of the referendum, said the UK must start rebuilding its relationship with Europe if it wants to reverse the economic damage.
“Brexit has been a mess,” he told The Independent.
“Britain has basically gone off a cliff.
“It has had a huge impact on the British economy. It is clearly poorer than it would otherwise be,” he said.
While he acknowledged that full EU membership would be hard to revisit a decade after the Brexit referendum, Mr Osborne said there is still a practical way to tighten links with the bloc and improve the outlook for trade and investment.
“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.”
