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    Courtesy of the Telegraph, yes no, maybe from the opposition .



    Labour will try to keep the UK in the single market and customs union after Brexit, the party’s shadow Brexit Secretary has announced.Sir Keir Starmer has outlined his intention to try and derail the Government’s EU Withdrawal Bill - dubbed the Repeal Bill - by proposing an amendment to keep existing trading arrangements with the bloc during any transitional period.

    His plan further confuses Labour’s Brexit policy and appears to contradict Jeremy Corbyn’s statement that under his leadership the UK would leave the single market.Sir Keir’s plan will seek to take advantage of Theresa May’s failure to win an outright majority at the general election by setting out a way forward which could win over pro-European Tory MPs.


    It comes as Anna Soubry, a Conservative MP and ardent Remain campaigner, told The Telegraph that if Labour changed tack and advocated staying in the single market it could prompt the Government to move in a similar direction to ensure the opposition does not “make the running” over Brexit.That could mean ministers accepting the UK operating under a “Norway-type of arrangement” with the EU, similar to membership of the European Economic Area (EEA), during the transitional period.

    Labour’s vision for Brexit has descended into chaos in recent weeks after frontbenchers advocated different positions to their leader.But comments given to The Guardian by Sir Keir suggest that the party will fight to keep the UK in the single market and customs union during a transitional period as Britain redefines its relationship with the EU after the point of Brexit in March 2019.Sir Keir said he is planning to table amendments to the Repeal Bill to "ensure it is possible to achieve transitional arrangements on the same basic terms - including the single market and the customs union".

    Ms Soubry said that “jobs and businesses are now driving the shape of Brexit and that is the right thing” as she said she wanted the UK to stay in the single market and customs union during the transitional period. The former business minister said she did not know whether such a move would make it to a vote because she believed “it is just a question of time before the Labour Party comes out in favour of membership of the single market” and that could cause the Government to adopt a new position. She said: “In that event, when Labour, as I think it will, shifts its position the Government has got to be able to respond very quickly or it will find itself in a position whereby the Labour Party, the opposition, start to put it to a vote, something which at the moment they are incapable of doing.

    “At that point that is when there will be people who are already saying both in and outside of Government in the Conservative Party this transition period has got to be absolutely right.”

    She added: “I think the Government needs to continue what it is doing which is to lead the debate, take the initiative, accept that there is a change and accept that a transition period which is basically going to be a Norway-type of arrangement so whether it is membership of the EEA or something a little bit more bespoke, it doesn’t matter, if it conveys the economic benefits to our country and gives business the certainty that it absolutely is crying out for.”

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