Thread by @chootchyface

Theresa May must tell UK customs union costs

Being inside the customs union costs Britain billions of pounds each year

UK shoppers overpay for non-European imports due to common external tariffs protecting inefficient producers elsewhere in the EU👇

telegraph.co.uk/business/2018/…

Four fifths of these revenues go to Brussels

They’re particularly steep on clothing, food and footwear, hitting poorer UK shoppers hardest – which is unfair

To divert money we send the EU to the NHS instead we must be outside the customs union

Stick that on the side of a bus👇

Staying in the customs union means charging EU tariffs with no say in setting them – the “vassal state” argument

This is the ghastly deal foisted on Turkey – an unproven partner state trying to join the EU

Britain is not Turkey – Brussels is trying to keep us and our money in👇

Customs union membership also means implicitly accepting EU regulations, de facto single market membership

That makes it doubly impossible for Britain to cut trade deals with other nations, one of the main Brexit benefits👇

"Dim Parliamentarians" say the customs union is an elegant compromise, but it’s the worst of both worlds

A compromise like leaping halfway over a chasm

And it makes a mockery of the June 2016 vote to take back control of our laws, borders and money.👇

The EU’s trade agreements are unimpressive in range & not particularly helpful

Brussels struggles to cut such deals as member states’ interests often conflict

That’s why, after 60 years of trying, the EU has no free trade agreements with major players like the US and China👇

EU deals in force cover under 10pc of the global economy and are generally skewed towards French and German, not British, interests

Sizeable economies with EU deals – like South Korea and Mexico – now want bespoke bi-lateral UK agreements.👇

Finally, the #CustomsUnion is unfair, insular and backward looking

It harms some of the world’s poorest nations, hindering their exports of processed agricultural products – you got that Labour MPs?👇

In the early Seventies, when Britain joined, the EU bloc comprised over 30% of the global economy

As global commerce has shifted east, that share has fallen to under 15% once Britain leaves.👇

It is mad for a competitive economy like Britain to hide behind a tariff wall harming our consumers and discriminating against 85% of the world economy.👇

A UK-US trade deal looks doable. Switzerland struck a Chinese deal and so can we. Secure these and the UK will be in a free-trade zone covering 40pc of the world economy – blowing the EU’s deals away. 👇

The idea that only the customs union can prevent renewed conflict in Ulster is also alarmist.

Practical solutions exist – as the head of the UK’s border authorities and his Irish equivalent have said. 👇

Of course, the EU says “non” – it’s a negotiation.

So prepare for “no deal”, tell Brussels publicly our multi-billion pound transition payment is off the table and watch Barnier change his mind.👇

Having let Project Fear dominate the narrative, Brexiteers should do some public crystal ball gazing of their own.

For the EU is facing an existential crisis. Eurozone industrial output has contracted for three successive months. 👇

The much-vaunted recovery is faltering – and was anyway driven by printed money.

For years, the European Central Bank has created billions of euros a month, propping up the bonds of over-indebted members struggling in the high-currency straitjacket that is monetary union. 👇

If the customs union is so vital to Britain, why are we running a massive trade deficit inside it, but a large surplus with the nations outside

And if the EU is so wonderful, why is its entire existence now dependent on endless printed money?