Today, the Committee on Exiting the European Union published its latest report on the progress of the UK’s negotiations on EU withdrawal.
The report shows that the government have yet resolve key issues of the Brexit negotiations, such as customs and future trading relations with the EU, and citizens’ rights.
Seema Malhotra MP, member for Exiting the European Union, said of the negotiations, “the government have run, but now there is nowhere left to hide.”
“It is extraordinary that nearly two years after the referendum there is still there uncertainty for EU citizens in the UK and British citizens in the EU and on other key issues. In a week when the Bank of England estimated Brexit has already cost us £300m a week, there appears to be no urgency for the Government to clarify even what new customs arrangements we will have in place in post-Brexit Britain.
“We hear so often from those who criticise the EU that we need to escape its bureaucracy and red tape. The irony of the government’s two customs proposals is that they would lead to more barriers and more delays than we currently experience as part of the Customs Union. The customs partnership could even undermine the tariff systems of both the UK and the EU and would require us to track the movement of every good imported into the UK for which the UK and EU did not have identical tariffs and quotas. And according to HMRC, the new customs partnership “would take approximately five years to implement”.
“On the Brexit fundamentals such as customs union, transition timescale and the Irish border, the Government’s progress to date fails to inspire confidence. Businesses in my constituency are already starting to execute contingency plans. The government have run, but now there is nowhere left to hide. Theresa May needs to now put country before Party. Time is clearly running out.”