The European Union Customs Union (EUCU) is acustoms union which consists of all the member states of the European Union (EU), Monaco, and some territories of the United Kingdom which are not part of theEU (Akrotiri and Dhekelia, Bailiwick of Guernsey, Bailiwick of Jersey, and the Isle of Man).
Our policy is having our cake and eating it,” British Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson told The Sun newspaper last year, in comments that were widely ridiculed including by European Union leaders. “There will be no cakes on the table. For anyone. There will be only salt and vinegar,” was the retort of EU Council head Donald Tusk soon after.
Since the EU referendum last year, Britain’s political leadership has sought to tackle the view that it had an entirely unrealistic picture of what Brexit Britain could look like. On the one hand it seemed to be seeking tariff-free access to European markets; on the other it was not willing to accept the four pillars of single-market membership: the free movement of people, shared laws and regulations, and competition policy, and a system of common tariffs on trade outside the union. On the one hand it sought free trade deals with non-EU countries, such as India; on the other it made plain its intention to prioritise immigration control both for workers and students from those countries, leaving the impression, in the recent words of one member of the House of Lords, “You want our trade but not our children.”
