George Osborne Calls for UK to Rejoin EU Customs Union, Brexiteers Fire Back

George Osborne wants Britain back in the EU customs union, and he's not being subtle about it.

The former Conservative chancellor, who resigned after being part of David Cameron's cabinet at the time of the 2016 referendum, told The Independent that Brexit "has been a mess" and that the UK economy has "basically gone off a cliff." His diagnosis: Britain is "clearly poorer than it would otherwise be" a decade after the vote.

Osborne's fix isn't full EU membership. He knows that's politically dead. Instead he's pushing rejoining the customs union, which he calls "a quite simple thing to do."

"That was never part of the Brexit debate," Osborne said. "No one knew we were leaving it and it has had a devastating impact on trade."

The Pitch: Trade Without Free Movement

Osborne's argument hinges on separating the customs union from the single market. According to Osborne, rejoining would not require Britain to accept free movement of EU citizens, which he calls "a pretty complicated issue to sell to people in Britain at the moment."

He directly challenged Prime Minister Andy Burnham to act on it: "If I was Andy Burnham, I don't see why you wouldn't rejoin the customs union."

Burnham has already signalled a willingness to pursue closer relations with European governments, saying "working alongside Europe is the key to driving a stronger Britain" in the context of cooperation with French authorities over small boat crossings. He has also blamed Brexit for having "ushered in a decade of low growth and stalled regeneration." But his government has stopped short of endorsing a return to the customs union, according to londonlovesbusiness.

The Case Against: Sovereignty and Tariffs

Rejoining the customs union would constrain the UK's ability to set independent external tariffs and negotiate its own trade agreements — one of the central economic arguments advanced by Brexit supporters. That's not a small trade-off. It goes to the core sovereignty argument that won the 2016 referendum.

Osborne's counter is that the promised American trade deal "looks pretty fanciful now." Whether that settles the broader sovereignty question is a genuinely contested one, not resolved by either side's rhetoric.

The Response Wasn't Exactly Economic

Brexiteers didn't focus on the trade figures. Former Conservative MEP David Bannerman went after Osborne personally on social media, resurfacing Osborne's referendum-era warning of a £35 billion tax-raising emergency budget if Britain voted to leave, a threat that never materialized, and claiming Osborne "is said to want to send the Marbles to Greece," a reference to the Elgin Marbles dispute that has nothing to do with customs policy, as reported by the Express.

Bannerman's post, cited by the Express, didn't engage with Osborne's tariff or trade argument at all. It attacked his credibility and record instead. Whether that counts as a substantive rebuttal or a dodge is something readers can judge for themselves, but it's not the same thing as disproving Osborne's economic claim.

What's Actually Unresolved

No government body or official EU counterpart has confirmed active negotiations toward customs union re-entry. Burnham has signaled openness to closer EU cooperation on issues like migration but has not committed to Osborne's specific proposal, according to londonlovesbusiness.

The open question is whether Burnham, who has already blamed Brexit for Britain's growth slowdown, will turn rhetoric into a concrete policy push. Rejoining the customs union would reduce friction in Britain's largest nearby trading relationship but would also constrain the UK's ability to set independent external tariffs, reopening a debate over EU relations that has largely shifted, nearly a decade after the referendum, from whether Brexit should have happened to how far Britain should now seek to reverse its economic consequences.