Kemi Badenoch has accused Labour of reopening old Brexit wounds in a desperate ploy to shore up its core vote.
The Tory leader said growing calls by some ministers for the UK to rejoin the European customs union showed the Government has no plan or new ideas.
And she warned that the move would mean Britain giving up the trade deals it has struck since leaving the EU, including with the US and India, while opening the door to even more demands for concessions from Brussels.
Her comments come after Health Secretary Wes Streeting claimed the best way to improve the economy would be a ‘deeper trading relationship with the EU’ while Deputy Prime Minister David Lammy repeatedly refused to rule out reversing Brexit.
Britain’s most senior trade union boss, TUC General Secretary Paul Nowak, has also urged Sir Keir Starmer not to rule out a customs union even though it is one of the Prime Minister’s ‘red lines’ on improving relations with the EU.
Writing in the Daily Mail, former Trade Secretary Mrs Badenoch said: ‘The fact is that the only people advocating for such a policy – and here I include the trade union bosses who have also proposed it – do not understand what a customs union actually is.’
She accused Labour of failing to understand that ‘trade policy is power’ and that a country that loses control of it is no longer able to govern itself.
‘This is why the renewed chatter about dragging Britain back into the EU’s customs union should worry us all. It is not a sign of pragmatism – it is a symptom of Labour’s weakness.’
Listing the Government’s U-turns on everything from restricting Winter Fuel Payments to imposing Inheritance Tax on family farms, the Conservative leader said: ‘Now that the government is weak and has no plan or new ideas, it has re-opened old Brexit wounds in the vain hope that doing so will make it more popular.
‘It won’t. Going back into the customs union would make us all poorer and damage British business and British farming.’
In her New Year’s message, Mrs Badenoch urged Britons not to ‘lose hope’ despite enduring higher taxes and unemployment under Labour in 2025.
‘Don’t let the politics of grievance tell you that we’re destined to stay the same,’ she said.
‘Things can change, but you also need to vote for the change you want to see in 2026.’
Meanwhile in one of a series of interviews to mark the tenth anniversary of the referendum this year, former Tory minister Lord Gove admitted he regretted destroying Boris Johnson’s leadership campaign in the wake of the vote.
He told the Electoral Dysfunction podcast that their ‘falling out’ meant the successful Vote Leave campaign never got to implement its Brexit plan, which would have included ‘waiting out’ the EU rather than triggering the Article 50 countdown process as Theresa May went on to do.
Former Liberal Democrat leader Sir Nick Clegg admitted that the Remain campaign was ‘lamentable’ and struggled to compete with the ‘emotive’ appeal to ‘take back control’.
