Thread by @ChrisLeslieUK

Preventing a Brexit disaster - and the austerity this entails - requires more than the #CustomsUnion alone. So here’s a few reasons why Labour’s frontbench must, as a minimum, now also back the #SingleMarket (other than for the famous ‘four freedoms’):

Yes a Customs Union is needed. It helps 20% of our economy. For the other 80% (and growing!) of our economy, which is in ‘services’, we need the Single Market. The right to export UK service expertise is vital.

With 11% of our tax revenues coming from the UK financial services sector (£66bn), we need the Single Market so it can trade on the same basis as financial firms from the other 27 countries. We can’t pay for our NHS, schools, welfare support without this revenue.

Single Market is needed for trade in goods too. For instance, medicines produced in UK can be sold across continent without need for recertification in each country. That’s the Single Market. Many ‘goods’ have ‘services’ aspects that require more than the Customs Union alone.

Car manufacturers need both Customs Union & Single Market. Car industry reps SMMT: “By not being part of common automotive regulatory framework there is longer-term risk of increasing burdens from non-tariff barriers where regulatory regimes may diverge & create additional costs”

The Single Market protects you as a consumer, ensuring that customers have safe products from wherever they're sourced in Europe, can access info, have rights of redress & where problems arise there can be cross-border enforcement.Consumer rights at risk if we leave #SingleMarket

Don’t ignore the importance of the mutual recognition of professional qualifications between EU countries. If you’re qualified to trade in the UK, you’re qualified across the whole of Europe. We risk losing this outside #SingleMarket

The #SingleMarket freedom to establish a company in another EU country is crucial for UK innovators, service providers and businesses. The Government have no plan at all to secure the cooperation agreements we have (via the EU) to allow UK firms to trade in the other 27 countries

Employment rights flow from the right to be ‘established’ and participate in economic life on a stable and continuous basis. Our involvement in the Single Market stops a Conservative government undercutting EU employment rights. Vital protections! #WorkersRights

The freedom to provide & receive services in another European country (other than where a company or consumer is established) underpins our place in 21st century free trade. The evolving ‘digital single market’ is a potential game-changer for UK tech innovators = 500m customers!

If we want to preserve the Good Friday Agreement and avoid a hard border between Republic & Northern Ireland, we need the Single Market’s full regulatory
alignment. Otherwise checks, inspections, limited border crossings, ie, no free
movement.

There’s no mandate for PM’s ‘red line’ on Single Market. As Tory MEP @DanielJHannan said himself before the referendum: “Absolutely nobody is talking about threatening our place in the single market”. Commons can override the PM. Let’s support #SingleMarket @laboursinglemkt