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LONDON, 17th June 2026: New polling released today from YouGov, conducted on behalf of the newly formed non-partisan campaign organisation Britain Unbound, has revealed exclusively that the British public from all education levels, all income bandings and all nations and regions have already rejected the plans being put forward by the Liberal Democrats - including Liberal Democrat voters themselves.
This unwillingness to accept the necessary terms of a Customs Union with the EU for greater Single Market access - which is a core pillar of the Liberal Democrat policy being announced today - holds true across every age group, every GB nation, every aggregate region of England, every education level, every household income level and every work type. But more importantly, it is also rejected by both current and former Lib Dem voters, as well as those who voted to remain in the EU in 2016.
The polling, which took place from 25-26 May and included a representative sample of 2120 GB adults, found that nearly two thirds of people (63%) would be unwilling to sacrifice the ability for the UK to sign its own trade deals, as a condition for greater access to the EU Single Market. As a Customs Union is by its very nature a harmonising of the tariffs and controls being levied amongst all members of the union, its existence would not only prohibit the UK from being able to sign new trade deals, but would also require a cancellation of all trade deals signed by the UK since we left the EU - including those that the EU does not have deals with at all.
Since the UK departed the EU and transition period in early 2021, the UK has made multiple significant changes to its tariff regime at the WTO level, reducing costs for British consumers on thousands of types of goods imported into the UK. At the WTO applied tariff level - the tariffs applied to WTO members who do not otherwise have a bilateral free trade agreement - the UK has increased the number of types of goods able to be imported tariff free from the 27% in place when we left the EU, to over 50% today. Recent announcements from the current Chancellor, Rachel Reeves, such as those lowering tariffs on 125 everyday household purchases, would not be possible were the UK to be within a Customs Union with the EU.
The question asked - “To what extent would you be willing or unwilling to accept…the UK no longer being able to sign its own trade deals with other countries…in return for the UK to be granted greater access to the EU’s Single Market?”
Steve Wright, Director of Britain Unbound - “Yet again, as has been the case throughout the national debate on EU membership for the last decade, the Liberal Democrats find themselves completely out of step with the attitudes and beliefs of the country, and seem instead to be unable to move on from a vote that they lost 10 years ago - further solidifying the belief that we see in voter intention polling, that as a party they are an increasing irrelevance to the politics of 2026 and the future of the UK”
Britain Unbound Advisory Council Co-Chair, John Redwood - “Imposing more tariffs against imports from non EU makes things dearer. It hits industry with higher costs of imported materials and components,losing us jobs. It costs consumers more pushing up prices.The customs union is a protection racket to protect EU producers and fleece UK consumers”
Britain Unbound Advisory Council Co-Chair, Richard Johnson - “As many as half of Liberal Democrat voters would not agree to giving up the Brexit freedom of Britain being able to strike its own trade deals in exchange for greater access to the EU single market. This is a highly significant finding. It shows that Ed Davey's rush to join the EU customs union, which would end this power, is out of touch with his own voters. It is also a departure from the historic values of British liberalism. The British liberal tradition historically prized free trade. And, historically, liberal eurosceptics opposed the EU on the grounds that membership curtailed Britain’s ability to trade across the globe. They believed that the EU’s external, protectionist tariff and internal subsidies for agriculture pushed up costs of consumer goods and limited growth and innovation. It seems that many Liberal Democrat voters still fundamentally agree with this analysis, even if their leadership does not.”
Britain Unbound Executive Committee Member, Julian Jessop - “Rejoining the Single Market and Customs Union would simply hand control of policymaking back to the EU, with even less say than before. The UK would be forced to adopt whatever rules and regulations the EU wants, while losing the new Brexit freedoms on everything from trade to migration. Adding insult to injury, we would have to pay many billions of pounds into the EU budget for the right to be told what to do.”
Britain Unbound Advisory Council Member, David Campbell-Bannerman - “The Liberals last won a landslide election outright in 1906 under Campbell-Bannerman. This was on the basis of free trade and opposing the German driven Customs Union epitomised by the Brussels Sugar Convention of 1902. Have the modern Lib Dem’s learnt nothing? Abandoning free trade ways to rejoin the Single Market and Customs Union is illiberal and undemocratic.”
