THE CUSTOMS UNION

There seems to almost universal acknowledgement that we will need to leave the customs union if we want to sign up trade deals with other countries. I say almost universal because I came across an article (HERE) where Richard North claims that this may not be the case. In fact he seems certain that we can sign up trade deals according to WTO rules.

What the government or the EU will make of the arguments made I don't know. However, the article does say we would have the pay the difference between the import duty we charge and the CET if we re-export the goods into the EU. So I assume there will need to be customs checks or declarations and this is going to add time and costs.