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The head of the UK trade union movement has thrown his support behind calls for Britain to negotiate a new customs union with the EU, arguing the move would boost living standards.
Paul Novak, general secretary of the Trades Union Congress, said Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer should seek “the closest possible economic and political relationship with Europe”, partly for geopolitical reasons but also to make workers’ lives more affordable.
“The last 12 months have proved that the White House is not the trusted ally we always thought it was, and so you have to get the relationship right with your biggest trading partner,” he told the Financial Times in an interview at the TUC’s London headquarters.
Novak said the government should consider every option “to improve our relationship with the EU (including) a customs union”. Such a deal would mean some or all goods could trade between the UK and the EU without customs checks, although it would also restrict Britain’s ability to sign other trade deals.
Currently, trade frictions are not only deterring investment into the UK, but also increasing cost-of-living pressures, Novak said. “In my mind, this is about protecting good quality jobs and supply chains in Britain, but it is also about the practical impact on prices in supermarkets,” he said.
“I don’t think you need to wait for the next election,” he said. “I think the British public wants action on living standards and action on the cost of living. And if a better Brexit deal is part of that, I think the public will support that.”
Despite the prime minister’s insistence that a new customs union with the EU would cross a “clear red line” and thwart trade deals with the US and India, Novak’s intervention has increased pressure on Starmer to be more ambitious in his “reset” with Brussels.
It follows comments from Health Secretary Wes Streeting, the front-runner to become the next Labor leader, who told the Observer last week that Britain would suffer a “massive economic blow” from Brexit and that the best way to boost growth would be a “deeper trading relationship with the EU”.
Novak argued that an agreement on youth mobility with the EU would also gain public support. “If you ask ordinary working-class people in this country whether they want their children to have the opportunity to live and work abroad, they would say, absolutely, yes.”
Novak said that while the TUC has long been making the case for stronger ties with the EU, “all the polling shows that whether you voted to leave or remain, people think we have a bad Brexit deal at the moment”.
He argued that this should be a priority for Labour, because to overcome the electoral challenge from Nigel Farage’s Reform UK party, “we have to do more to prove that mainstream politics can make positive changes to people’s quality of life”.
Union leaders have become critical of the Starmer administration over the past year as Reform has gained ground in the polls, clashing with the government, particularly over welfare reform.
The election this month of left-wing candidate Andrea Egan to head Unison, Britain’s largest public sector union, could spark further conflict, especially given government plans for a tougher public sector pay settlement.
For the TUC, which represents 47 member unions, the top priority for 2026 is to pressure ministers to implement the new workers’ rights that were passed into law earlier this month. Unions are concerned that with most of the details of the law still to be hammered out in regulations, business groups will fight behind-the-scenes action to delay or weaken key measures.
“A Diet Coke version of the Employment Rights Act won’t cut it,” Novak said, adding that secondary legislation offering workers guaranteed hours and imposing new rights for unions to access workplaces should be “absolutely uncontroversial.”
His comments are a blow to business groups who argue that stronger protections for workers would be counterproductive by making it more risky and expensive.
Novak argued that instead of giving businesses the ground, the government should move forward with further reforms to ensure that employers cannot avoid their new obligations by hiring freelancers instead of employees.
“What I don’t want to see is a whole series of new employment rights, and employers saying, ‘Don’t worry, we’ve got a way to deal with this, that is, you are now effectively self-employed’,” he said, urging Labor to act on its commitment to review workers’ conditions.
“In my view, this is the key or one of the keys to winning the next election, is to create an Employment Rights Act that is actually having an impact on workplaces.”
