Labour leader wants tariff-free access after Brexit but cites concerns about restrictions on state aid and pressures for privatisation

Jeremy Corbyn has said he is wary of committing to stay in the European single market because it would restrict the powers of a future Labour government to implement party policies.

Speaking from Labour conference in Brighton, the Labour leader said he wanted tariff-free access to the single market with a close relationship to the EU, but said he was wary of committing to full single market membership, akin to the deal Norway has with the EU, despite a recent poll showing 66% of Labour members back a single market deal.

“We need to look very carefully at the terms of any trade relationship, because at the moment we are part of the single market, obviously,” he told the BBC’s The Andrew Marr Show. “That has within it restrictions on state aid and state spending.

Labour should commit to staying in the single market and customs union Read more

“That has pressures on it, through the European Union, to privatise rail, for example, and other services. I think we have to be quite careful about the powers we need as national governments.”

Corbyn said there was some dispute about how far governments could stretch state-aid rules, suggesting the government could have acted more decisively to protect the UK steel industry, something the Conservatives had said was constrained by EU rules.

John McDonnell, the shadow chancellor, later did not definitively rule out staying in the single market, if it could be reformed. Speaking to ITV’s Peston on Sunday, he said Labour wanted to continue with the “benefits of single market and overcome some of the dis-benefits” but the structure of the relationship would be a matter for negotiations.

Keir Starmer, the shadow Brexit secretary, has said Labour’s policy is that Britain should remain in the single market and the customs union for a transitional period of two to four years after Brexit.

Corbyn said a transitional period should last as long as necessary but it would not be as long as a decade. “I think it’s impossible for anyone to put an absolute figure on that,” he said.

McDonnell told Peston on Sunday Labour’s position was that a transition should be as “short as possible but as long as necessary”, though probably not as long as four years.

On Sunday, Corbyn supporters will attempt to block a vote at Labour conference on staying in the single market and maintaining free movement, a vote which if passed could contradict and embarrass the leadership.



Corbyn told the BBC on Sunday he wanted members of the party to be able to have more of a binding say over policymaking. “We’re looking at how we can open the party up much more and make conference the final decider of policy,” he said.

However, Labour’s pro-Europe membership may vote to take a differing view on Brexit to the Labour leadership, unless the issue is blocked from debate. On Sunday, an open letter from more than 30 MPs, as well as MEPs, Labour peers, trade union leaders and mayors, was published in the Observer, calling for Corbyn to commit to full and permanent membership of the single market, demanding that Labour showed “the courage of its convictions”.

Momentum, the grassroots leftwing movement, has told its members to vote against the inclusion of Brexit as a topic to be voted on in Brighton. In an email to supporters, Momentum’s leadership said delegates should pick motions on housing, social care, the NHS and rail for a vote.

Local Labour parties and the TSSA trade union have called for a vote on motions to change Labour’s Brexit policy – including maintaining free movement and keeping the UK within Europe’s single market. Brexit is due to be debated on Monday, but unless the topic is chosen to be put to a vote, the debate will have no effect on Labour policy.

The director of the centrist pressure group Progress, Richard Angell, said: “It is shameful tactics by the Momentum leadership to try and stop members democratically discussing Brexit let alone committing the party to staying in the single market‬ permanently and debating the important principles of freedom of movement.

“Most Momentum activists are desperate to stop a hard Brexit, but the secret Bennite Brexiteers want to keep Labour’s position as vague as possible for as long as possible – also known as a Tory-lite Brexit position. This is clearly Momentum using a ‘stitch and fix’ to avoid Jeremy Corbyn’s blushes.”

In their open letter the MPs and senior figures in the Labour movement, including former shadow cabinet members Heidi Alexander and Chuka Umunna, as well as Clive Lewis, one of Corbyn’s closest allies in his early days as leader, say it is “unsustainable to say we are an anti-austerity party” while being in favour of leaving the single market and customs union.