Rejoining the Customs Union and Single market would do economic harm

By johnredwood on January 6, 2026

When I was the UK’s Single Market Minister I was appalled by the excessive and bad laws and regulations the Commission drafted and tried to force through. I had to waste my time seeking to build qualified minority vote blocks to delay measures or to try to get revisions or dilutions to the harm the drafts would do.

The procedures were designed to concentrate power in the hands of the Commission. As a participating Minister I could not move my own amendment to a law but had to get the Commission to adopt the change behind the scenes if they accepted I could mobilise a blocking minority against their bad proposal.

I kept the UK Parliament informed of the main proposals but Parliament had no official role. It just had to rubber stamp anything the Council of Ministers accepted from the Commission. Thousands of bad laws got through over our long years in the Single Market. Parliament had to watch and submit.

The EU Council legislates in private to avoid scrutiny by press and public. Ministers from various states could be persuaded to back something whatever their stated views on the issue safe in the knowledge they could not be seen and heard shifting position away from a national interest.

The Commission just wanted to occupy as many areas of life and government activity as possible. To do so it usually asked leading French and German companies and their governments how they did things and then make that the only legal way to do things in their laws . It rarely thought of the needs of small business, innovators and challengers.

It was also anti US. Wherever the US was pulling ahead through new ideas the EU sought to regulate and fine the US success stories.