US Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson has warned of a "whole new web of bureaucracy," which he said would emerge if the government approves London's trade cooperation plan with the EU, which was outlined by British Prime Minister Theresa May.
The Daily Mail cited Johnson as saying that "it's totally untried and would make it very, very difficult to do free trade deals."
"If you have the new customs partnership, you have a crazy system whereby you end up collecting the tariffs on behalf of the EU at the UK frontier," he noted.
Twitter users have, meanwhile, remained at loggerheads over Johnson's remarks with respect to May's proposal on post-Brexit cooperation with the EU.
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Jonson's remarks came after May made it clear that she is now absolutely determined to fully withdraw the UK from the EU customs union within a wider Brexit process.
Earlier, the British PM proposed a hybrid option of a "customs partnership" with the EU stipulating that the UK would continue to collect tariffs set by the EU customs union for goods coming into the country on behalf of the bloc.
In a letter to May, an array of pro-Brexit Conservative lawmakers argued that the "customs partnership" is "undeliverable in operational terms and would require a degree of regulatory alignment that would make the execution of an independent trade policy a practical impossibility."
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During a nationwide referendum in the UK on June 23, 2016, more than half of the participants voted in favor of the country leaving the EU.
Britain is expected to pull out of the bloc by the end of March 2019, but London has been seeking a two-year transition period to smooth out the withdrawal, as well as guarantees of a future relationship with the EU.