Downing Street has insisted it will not back down on leaving the customs union, as pro-Brexit MPs signalled their resolve over the issue ahead of a key week for the future of the UK’s relations with Europe.

Peers voted last week in favour of an amendment in favour of staying in the customs union but No 10 rejected the idea of any backsliding. “The position remains very clear: we don’t think staying in a customs union is the right thing to do and it isn’t government policy to do so,” a Downing Street source said.

Jeremy Hunt, the health secretary, reiterated the point on BBC1’s Breakfast on Monday. “Theresa May’s position on this has been very, very clear,” he said. “She has said that we are not going to be part of the customs union or any customs union. That position hasn’t changed and Downing Street have been clear about that this morning.”

Government hopes of avoiding a hard border in Ireland either through technological innovation or regulatory alignment have been set back after they were rejected during preliminary negotiations in Brussels.

That has led to speculation that May was preparing to concede on a customs union, which has been a red line since the prime minister’s conference speech in October 2016.

John Redwood, the strongly pro-leave Conservative backbencher, said on Monday he did not feel that No 10’s reiteration of the plan to leave any form of customs union had been necessary.

“I don’t think I needed reassuring,” he told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme. “I’ve heard many times the prime minister say that it is our policy to leave the single market and customs union.

“More importantly, on a three-line whip, we have twice now had formal, important votes in the House of Commons on this, and the House of Commons voted on both occasions by a big margin that we should leave the single market and the customs union.”

Asked if the prime minister might shift her policy, Redwood said: “Theresa May won’t change her mind, I assume, because she’s been crystal clear on this throughout, and the Conservative manifesto was quite clear on this, and we need to stick to our word.”

The BBC later reported that No 10 could even decree that any vote on staying in the customs union via amendments tabled by Tory remainers would be seen as an issue of confidence in the government. However, a Downing Street source dismissed this.

Kenneth Clarke, who has supported one of these amendments, told Today the issue had “suddenly become panic of the day among the apparatchiks in Downing Street”.

He said: “Over the weekend I read briefings from Downing Street, allegedly, and others informed about what was going on, that they were going to move on the whole question of the customs arrangements. Today it’s all frightfully important, a matter of confidence, whatever that means.”

Clarke said such an important matter must be left to parliament to decide, saying: “Nobody wants to just erect new barriers to trade between ourselves and Europe, with thousands of customs officers, lorry parks and so on. I think in the end, parliament has got to decide what is in the national interest. This is a big subject.”

Reports over the weekend suggested a “wargaming” exercise into the consequences of a concession showed that not even leading Brexiters such as Michael Gove, the environment secretary, or Boris Johnson, the foreign secretary, would resign.

But a source close to Gove reiterated his opposition, saying: “Michael believes respecting the referendum result means taking back control of trade policy. He fully supports the prime minister’s position that this means leaving the customs union.”

Although the dropping of other pledges in negotiations have been reluctantly accepted, such as the promise to reclaim control over fishing quotas from March 2019, accepting continued membership of a customs union would be of a different and much larger scale.

Any customs union makes it effectively impossible to negotiate free trade deals with other countries – one of the government’s key ambitions and a central justification for leaving the EU.



A meaningful vote on remaining in the customs union is likely in the next few months. At least 10 Conservative backbenchers have signed an amendment to the trade and customs bill supporting continued membership.