More than six years after voting to leave the European Union, the UK is facing a prolonged recession and a deep cost-of-living crisis. Last week’s Autumn Statement heralded years of higher taxes and cuts to public spending, SIA refers to foreign media.
The gloomy prognosis has re-opened the debate over Brexit, previously the deadly third rail of Conservative Party politics, which many thought ended for good with the signing of a free trade deal at Christmas 2020.
Days after being forced to accept sweeping changes in fiscal policy, Brexiters were last weekend confronted with a Sunday Times story that said senior figures in Prime Minister Rishi Sunak’s government are seeking a closer “Swiss-style relationship” with the European Union.
The language angered hardliners who oppose anything that trades away Britain’s newly won regulatory freedoms. Yet the very fact that the possibility was broached in public -- and attributed to a senior government source -- is a departure from the “have cake and eat it” era of Boris Johnson or the short-lived low-tax vision of his successor, Liz Truss.
Chancellor of the Exchequer Jeremy Hunt has privately said that the UK should seek a closer trading arrangement with the EU, in line with the Sunday Times report, multiple senior government figures familiar with his thinking said. In the first sign of dissatisfaction with Hunt from within Sunak’s camp, one senior official criticized the chancellor for speaking too loosely.
A spokesman for Hunt declined to comment. Hunt’s views have been over-interpreted by the media, people familiar with his thinking said.
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