{"id":338958,"date":"2025-12-28T09:02:17","date_gmt":"2025-12-28T09:02:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/338958\/"},"modified":"2025-12-28T09:02:17","modified_gmt":"2025-12-28T09:02:17","slug":"uk-trade-unions-urge-labour-to-revisit-eu-customs-union-politico","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/338958\/","title":{"rendered":"UK trade unions urge Labour to revisit EU customs union \u2013 POLITICO"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>The U.K. left the EU customs union after the 2016 Brexit referendum, formally exiting the bloc in January 2020 under then-Prime Minister Boris Johnson. Britain remained aligned with EU trade rules during a transition period before fully leaving the customs union on Jan. 1, 2021, when the EU-U.K. Trade and Cooperation Agreement took effect.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>The move restored Britain\u2019s ability to strike independent trade deals but introduced customs checks, rules-of-origin requirements and new barriers for exporters.<\/p>\n<p>Prime Minister Keir Starmer has so far ruled out rejoining the customs union, framing it as a red line while promising a broader \u201creset\u201d with Brussels. <\/p>\n<p>\u201cWe are getting a closer relationship with the EU on a number of fronts, including on trade and the economy,\u201d Starmer <a href=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=4a7M9-0MfhU\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">told MPs earlier this month<\/a>, adding: \u201cWe have clear red lines in relation to the single market and the customs union.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The U.K. left the EU customs union after the 2016 Brexit referendum, formally exiting the bloc in January&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":338959,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[824,934,625,817,17984,19603,59,57,58,2923,420,50,9614,1353,426,2801,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-338958","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-united-kingdom","tag-boris-johnson","tag-brexit","tag-british-politics","tag-cooperation","tag-customs","tag-customs-union","tag-gb","tag-great-britain","tag-greatbritain","tag-growth","tag-keir-starmer","tag-news","tag-referendum","tag-single-market","tag-trade","tag-transition-implementation-period","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/338958","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=338958"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/338958\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/338959"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=338958"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=338958"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=338958"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}