Boris Johnson has stressed the need for the UK to come “fully out” of the EU customs union if the UK is to be a global trading nation.



Johnson said his recent trip to Latin America – during which he urged the prime minister to “get on with it” and take Britain out of the customs union “as fast as is reasonably possible” – made it clear that potential trading partners wanted the UK to leave the EU tariffs arrangement.

Writing in the Telegraph, Johnson said: “Now is our moment not to be less European – we can do a great free trade deal with the EU that will benefit both sides – but to be truly global again.”

He said it was time to create deals with the “dynamic countries” he had visited “but our Latin American partners are emphatic: if this is to work, we must come fully out of the EU customs union”. If the UK is to be a “valid trading partner, then we must take back control – as the PM has said – of our tariff schedules, and do deals that are unhindered and uncomplicated”.

Brexiters have been alarmed by delays in cabinet decision-making over the future customs model and the prospect of a backstop deal which could see the UK closely aligned to EU rules for a number of years if alternative ways of resolving the Irish border issue are not found.

The foreign secretary’s latest intervention came after Jacob Rees-Mogg called on May to take a tougher line with Brussels in the negotiations.

Rees-Mogg, the chairman of the European Research Group of Tories, said the government had proposed “over-complicated” solutions to the customs problem and must be prepared to tell Brussels it would walk away without paying the Brexit divorce bill, of almost £40bn, potentially leaving the bloc in the red.

Facebook Twitter Pinterest Jacob Rees-Mogg on The Andrew Marr Show. Photograph: Jeff Overs/BBC/PA

On BBC1’s The Andrew Marr Show, Rees-Mogg said May had made a mistake over her approach to the Irish border issue, one of the most contentious aspects of the negotiations, by ruling out the prospect of unilaterally keeping an open frontier after Brexit.

Rees-Mogg said: “The prime minister said in her Mansion House speech that she wasn’t going to do this, I think that is a mistake. I think it is the obvious negotiating position to have. Bear in mind the Irish economy is heavily dependent on its trade with the United Kingdom, it is overwhelmingly in the interests of the Republic of Ireland to maintain an open border with the United Kingdom.

“I think, if you are going into a negotiation, you should use your strongest cards and just to tear one of them up and set hares running on other issues is, I think, an error.”