Liam Fox suggests he would have quit Cabinet if Chequers plan kept customs ties with EU
2 min read
Liam Fox has hinted that he would have left the Government if Theresa May had signed up to keeping Britain tied to the EU customs union.
The International Trade Secretary said staying in Europe’s trade bloc or the single market would have been “unacceptable” and “red lines” for the UK people.
The comments came as Mr Fox visited the US for talks with senior Washington officials about the prospect of a post-Brexit UK-US free trade deal.
When asked in an interview with the Daily Telegraph, whether he had doubts about supporting Mrs May’s Chequers deal, he said: “My view was that we had to have our ability to trade on tariffs and quotas.
"Obviously if we’d stayed in a customs union or single market we would not have the freedom to be able to have that manoeuvre and that would have been unacceptable.”
The UK’s White Paper prompted a string of Government resignations including those of Boris Johnson, David Davis and Brexit junior minister Steve Baker.
When asked explicitly why he did not resign, Mr Fox told the paper: “Because I think that we’ve a long way to go yet in knowing what our agreement with the EU is going to be.
“We haven’t even had a full response from the EU [on] what we’re proposing. It’s not certain we’ll get any agreement, actually, with the EU.
“There’s a great deal of preparation work – especially in my department - that needs to get done for a range of different scenarios and I’m determined it gets done properly. Having started that I’m intent on finishing it.”
He added that the public “wouldn’t tolerate” the UK giving further concessions on the issue of free movement, while praising Mrs May’s offer to Brussels as “credible”.
“I think it’s a red line for the British public. I think they made clear in the referendum what the parameters were within which the government could negotiate.”
Mr Fox also insisted a trade deal with the US could be agreed by 2020, despite Donald Trump sensationally claiming the Chequers plan “killed” the chance of a free trade deal – before publicly rowing back the comments.
“There can be absolutely no certainty in this world but that’s what we’re working towards,” he said.
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