Labour Brexit row as leadership join Tories to sink Murray’s customs union plan

Senior Labour backbenchers have rallied to the defence of Ian Murray after the former shadow cabinet minister’s attempt to keep Britain in the single market and customs union was torpedoed by the leadership voting alongside the Tories.

As Murray accused Labour’s frontbench of “aiding and abeting” the Tories, he received messages of support from colleagues.

Chuka Umunna, former shadow business secretary, said Murray “deserved great credit” for tabling the amendment, adding: “It is vital we put clear red water between the Labour position and a Tory hard Brexit if we’re to truly put jobs first during this Brexit process.”

MPs backed Murray because they feared this was the final opportunity to vote on a customs union while the debate came as the government appears to be used the Brexit bill to pave the way for a “no deal” scenario.

Senior shadow cabinet figures have insisted, however, that Murray’s proposal was unworkable.

The row was prompted when the Labour leadership whipped MPs to vote down Murray’s amendment to a “ways and means” motion on the Taxation (Cross-border Trade) bill. The former shadow Scotland secretary had drawn up the change in an attempt to exempt EU goods from customs duties after Brexit, therefore keeping Britain in the customs unions.

After the 311-76 defeat in the vote Murray, a leading supporter of Open Britain, said the fight for membership of the customs union was “far from over”.

“The government’s reckless, ideological decision to pull us out of the customs union will damage trade with the EU, our biggest economic partner, and risk chaos at our ports with lorries backing up motorways as they face reams of new red tape. And it will make a hard border between Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland inevitable,” he added.

“Customs union membership is simply the best economic option for our country. Leaving it for fantasy new trade deals which cannot replicate the trade we do with Europe is no solution.”

This morning Murray turned his fire on the Labour leadership. In a blog for the Huffington Post, he wrote: “I’ve tried to use the mechanisms of parliament to make the government see sense and do what is right for the country and not their narrow party interest (and there are some brave and sensible souls on the Tory benches like Anna Soubry and Ken Clark). I expected to lose, but I didn’t expect my own party frontbench to aid and abet them.”

Barry Gardiner, the shadow trade secretary, defended the Labour leadership and said the whip imposed had just been one-line, rather than the toughest three-line level of discipline.

“[The] amendment would have stopped Treasury from applying any tariffs or quotas to goods in or out of EU after Brexit. It did NOT keep us in Customs Union as EU could still impose tariffs on us!,” he wrote on Twitter.

“WTO’s ‘most favoured nation’ rule says unless you have a specific trade agreement you must give all countries the same tariff & quota deal as you give the most favoured. So if you can’t give tariffs to EU you can’t to anyone else either!

“So amendment would mean: i)Under No Deal the U.K. could not impose ANY tariffs or quotas. ii)even if we had a Customs Union Agreement with the EU but had a dispute over dumping we would not be able to impose any countervailing tariff to defend our industry Hope that helps!”