Rachel Reeves has blasted Boris Johnson’s Brexit deal, admitting it has “reduced trade flows” between Britain and Europe.
On a visit to Brussels, the chancellor said an improved relationship with the EU would strengthen the economy and improve living standards but dismissed any attempt to rejoin the single market.
Insisting the Labour government will “stick to our red lines” over Europe, she revealed negotiations with the EU will reopen in the new year to repair the “fractured” relationship.
Rachel Reeves, who became the first Chancellor to meet EU finance ministers in Brussels since Brexit, said: “We got a mandate at the election in July to grow our economy and we also included in that manifesto a number of red lines in terms of our relationship with the European Union: no return to the single market, the customs union or free movement of labour.
“Those red lines remain, but subject to those we want to build closer trade relationships, but also defence and security co-operation with our neighbours and trading partners in the European Union, because it is in our collective national interest to do so.
“I recognise that the deal the previous government secured post-Brexit was not the best one for our country and indeed has reduced trade flows not just from the UK to the European Union, but also from businesses based in the European Union into the UK.
“And so there is a shared objective and a shared challenge to improve those trade flows, to improve those investment flows in the interests of citizens not just in the UK but also in countries in the European Union too.”
Asked whether the UK would be open to giving up some of its sovereignty, the chancellor said: “I did not come here today to start a negotiation or to lay down a set of demands.
“Those conversations about the reset and those negotiations will begin in the new year. But what I was aiming to do today was to begin to rebuild those bonds of trust that have been fractured in the last few years under the previous government and to show our friends, neighbours and allies in the European Union that we want a reset of those relationships… I hope that’s what I achieved in the meeting today.”
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