‘UK will do ‘whatever’ is needed to be competitive’

Bloomberg

The UK will do “whatever we have to do” to boost its competitiveness if it fails to secure post-Brexit access to the European Union single market, Chancellor of the Exchequer Philip Hammond said in an interview published on Sunday in a German newspaper.
“If Britain were to leave the
European Union without an agreement on market access, then we could suffer from economic damage at least in the short-term,” Hammond said in an interview with Welt am Sonntag.
“In this case, we could be forced to change our economic model and we will have to change our model to regain competitiveness. And you can be sure we will do whatever we have to do.”
Hammond was criticized by opposition Labour Party leader Jeremy Corbyn, who said the comments sounded like a threat to wage a trade war.
The chancellor’s interview was published the same day the Sunday Times reported that Prime Minister Theresa May will signal plans for a “hard Brexit” this week by saying she’s willing to quit the EU’s single market for goods and services to
regain control of Britain’s borders and laws. That risks alarming investors, bankers and company executives, who will fret that May is prioritizing social issues over the needs of the economy.
While May might hope to eventually line up a new free-trade partnership with the bloc of over 500 million consumers, leaving the EU’s single market and customs union risks making it costlier and more complicated for British exporters to trade with their biggest market.
Hammond’s comments imply that when it comes to those economic issues, he’s willing to play hard ball.