Friday, March 29, 2024

No one wants lines of trucks at borders after Brexit: Hammond

No one wants lines of trucks at borders after Brexit: Hammond
March 29, 2017

LONDON - Chancellor Philip Hammond said on Wednesday he was confident the country would negotiate a customs arrangement with the European Union that would allow for borders to be as frictionless as possible after Brexit.

"Everybody in the EU and the UK is going to go into this negotiation looking to protect their own interests," Hammond said in an interview on BBC radio, answering a question about customs arrangements after Brexit.

"It is not in the interests of anybody on the continent of Europe to have lines of trucks. It is not in the interests of the millions of EU workers who spend their days producing goods to be sold in the UK.

"It is not in the interests of French farmers who produce fresh produce coming into the UK every day that there are lines of trucks. So I am very confident that we will not get an outcome that is a worst case outcome for everybody. That would be ridiculous."

Hammond was speaking hours before Prime Minister Theresa May officially starts the process of Britain leaving the European Union by triggering Article 50 of the bloc's Lisbon Treaty. -Reuters