Labour pledges to ‘tear down’ obstacles after new figures reveal Brexit costing UK enterprise £37bn a 12 months | EUROtoday

Ministers have pledged to “tear down” obstacles to commerce with the European Union after new figures confirmed Brexit has value UK enterprise £37bn a 12 months.

The value of the UK’s departure was laid naked as the federal government mentioned the full commerce with the EU was 5 per cent decrease than earlier than Britain left the bloc.

Trade minister Douglas Alexander hit out on the Brexit deal agreed by the earlier Conservative authorities, saying it was “clear .. [it] is not working well enough”.

Labour is at the moment negotiating a “reset” of relations, in a deal Keir Starmer has mentioned will restore the UK’s broken relationship with the EU for the good thing about “generations to come”.

Mr Alexander mentioned ministers would work with different international locations “to improve the UK’s trade and investment relationship with the EU, tearing down unnecessary barriers to trade to help drive growth”.

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He added that within the 12 months to the tip of September final 12 months, the UK’s complete commerce with the EU was 5 per cent “below the level seen in 2018”, earlier than the UK left the bloc, as soon as inflation and treasured metals have been excluded.

Analysis by the House of Commons library estimates the 5 per cent drop to be price £37bn.

Mr Alexander’s feedback got here in a parliamentary written reply to the SNP MP Stephen Gethins, who commissioned the evaluation.

He mentioned: “This is an appalling loss of trade at a time when business and the Exchequer can ill afford it.”

He added: “When the government is cutting budgets that will hit the poorest in the UK with benefits cuts – and the most vulnerable around the world with aid cuts – it is obscene that it continues to pursue an expensive and unnecessary hard Tory Brexit.

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“The drop in trade makes us all poorer, including taking away resources from the Treasury. It also makes growth more difficult by hobbling business with red tape that is particularly detrimental to SMEs [small and medium-sized enterprises].

“A hard Brexit makes us poorer and less secure. The government must stop punching down on the most vulnerable to balance the books and join the customs union and single market at the very least.”

Earlier this week, The Independent revealed that Brexit had created a “mind-blowing” two billion further items of paperwork – sufficient to wrap all over the world 15 occasions.

Trade professional David Henig, UK director on the European Centre for International Political Economy suppose tank, mentioned the autumn in commerce revealed by the most recent figures was “undoubtedly as a result of Brexit” and referred to as for sensible steps from the federal government “of which the most important by far is removing regulatory differences”.

Mike Galsworthy, chair of all-party strain group European Movement UK, mentioned: “Given that the government is admitting that Brexit has hurt UK-EU trade substantially and further says its mission is to ‘remove unnecessary trade barriers’, it would be interesting to know why exclusion from the European single market, customs union and free movement arrangements, which were never on the referendum ballot, are now deemed to be inviolably necessary trade barriers.”

Tom Brufatto, director of coverage and analysis at Best for Britain, which campaigns for nearer EU-UK ties, mentioned: “No one credible argues that the present barriers to trade have been anything but a catastrophe, particularly for British businesses, but independent research shows that the government can repair the damage with deeper alignment with the EU, boosting the UK economy by up to 2.2 per cent.

“In the context of eye-watering cuts and increased defence spending, maintaining high food and safety standards is completely uncontroversial and should be expedited at the UK-EU summit in May.”

The Department for Business and Trade declined to remark additional.