{"id":769371,"date":"2026-09-13T13:28:15","date_gmt":"2026-09-13T13:28:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/769371\/"},"modified":"2026-09-13T13:28:15","modified_gmt":"2026-09-13T13:28:15","slug":"george-osborne-calls-for-uk-to-rejoin-eu-customs-union-and-boost-trade-economic-growth-gdp","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/769371\/","title":{"rendered":"George Osborne calls for UK to rejoin EU customs union and boost trade | Economic growth (GDP)"},"content":{"rendered":"

The former chancellor George Osborne said Britain\u2019s economy had \u201cfallen off a cliff\u201d since Brexit and that rejoining the European Union\u2019s customs union would be the fastest route to recovery.<\/p>\n

Osborne, who was sacked as chancellor by Theresa May after being part of David Cameron\u2019s cabinet at the time of the referendum, said it was important to rebuild links with the EU.<\/p>\n

\u201cBrexit has been a mess,\u201d he told the Independent<\/a>. \u201cBritain 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.\u201d<\/p>\n

Acknowledging that rejoining the EU would be difficult a decade on from the Brexit referendum, Osborne said closer ties with Europe<\/a> could boost the economy.<\/p>\n

\u201cI would rejoin the customs union,\u201d he said. \u201cIt\u2019s a quite simple thing to do. That was never part of the Brexit<\/a> debate. No one knew we were leaving it and it has had a devastating impact on trade.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe reason we weren\u2019t supposed to be in the customs union \u2013 according to the Brexiteers \u2013 was these great trade deals we were going to strike with America. That all looks pretty fanciful now.<\/p>\n

\u201cPeople now realise you can\u2019t look at Britain\u2019s growth problem without beginning to think, \u2018How can we revive trade with the continent, how can we get investment?\u2019<\/p>\n

\u201cIf I was Andy Burnham, I don\u2019t see why you wouldn\u2019t rejoin the customs union. It\u2019s a pretty straightforward decision because unlike (rejoining) the single market it does not require you to accept the free movement of people \u2013 which is a pretty complicated issue to sell to people in Britain at the moment.\u201d<\/p>\n

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This article was amended on 13 September 2025. An earlier version said George Osborne<\/a> resigned as chancellor, when in fact he was sacked by Theresa May.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The former chancellor George Osborne said Britain\u2019s economy had \u201cfallen off a cliff\u201d since Brexit and that rejoining…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":769372,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[59,57,58,50,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-769371","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-united-kingdom","tag-gb","tag-great-britain","tag-greatbritain","tag-news","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/769371","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=769371"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/769371\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/769372"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=769371"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=769371"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=769371"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}