The UK government pitched the creation of a single market for goods with the EU as the cornerstone of an ambitious attempt to reintegrate British trade back into Europe, the Guardian can reveal.
During recent visits to Brussels, the Cabinet Office’s top official on EU relations, Michael Ellam, presented the idea to deepen the UK’s economic relationship with the bloc.
But in a sign of the challenge Keir Starmer’s government faces in securing growth through a closer relationship with Europe, sources told the Guardian that EU officials rejected the idea – and instead suggested a customs union or economic alignment through the European Economic Area.
Those ideas are impossible under Starmer’s red lines. He said in 2024 the UK would not rejoin the EU, the single market or customs union in his lifetime. The EEA – a single market of 30 mostly EU countries – would also mean accepting free movement of people, another Labour red line.
UK government sources however, denied that the EU had definitively rejected a single market for goods and said it was among a range of options being discussed before a summit tentatively pencilled in for 13 July. » | Jennifer Rankin in Brussels and Rowena Mason | Friday, May 22, 2026
