EU would not allow UK to 'cherry pick' customs union deal: former trade chief

A customs union deal is an option for Britain after Brexit, but the country would have to “abide by the rules of Europe”, the former head of the UK's trade department said on Monday.

Sir Andrew Cahn, the former chief executive of UK Trade and Investment, told the BBC, that membership of the customs union means abiding by “all the rules and regulation of Brussels” as Turkey does.

Cahn said Turkey’s deal with the trading bloc meant it accepted the industrial standards that Brussels set now and in the future with no say in them and abided the the rulings of the European Court of Justice on these standards.

However he said that he could not see why the EU would allow Britain to “cherry pick” for specific sectors in a potential customs union deal.

Cahn, who also a former adviser to European commissioner Lord Cockfield who helped create the single market, said: “What I think is more difficult to contemplate is the idea that you have cars inside but some sort of widgets outside. The idea is that cars, which we care about, aerospace, which we care about, financial services, which we care about, wouldn’t it be great if they were in the customs union?

“Would that be legal under the WTO [World Trade Organisation]? I doubt, even if we got away with it I don’t think the EU side would be prepared to do it, why would they allow us to cherry pick?”

International trade secretary Liam Fox told the BBC on Sunday that Britain could remain a partial member of the EU customs union, which means specific goods would be able to cross borders without customs checks, saving time and money.

“We want to look at all the different things, it's not binary. I hear people talking about hard Brexit and soft Brexit as though it's a boiled egg we are talking about, it's a little more complex. So, Turkey, for example, is in part of the customs union, but not other parts.”