Sir Iain Duncan Smith

Sir Iain Duncan Smith

Conservative — Chingford and Woodford Green

Speaking in the House of Commons on 13 May 2025

Debate

UK-EU Summit

Contribution

I want to make a couple of points on this issue before I give way. We know, and everybody else around the world outside the EU knows, that the EU puts up very hidden tariff barriers. America is right about that; it complained that Europe finds all sorts of little regulations and problems, so that it cannot break in with its products and goods. That has happened for a long time, and it has happened with us—we know that it was even happening when we were in the EU. We are by nature a free-trading country, and there is no way on earth that we think the EU as a construct is as free trading in that sense. It wants to protect its markets more than anything else, rather than open up to the rest of the world.

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