The European Union's chief Brexit negotiator Michel Barnier says the time has come for Britain to make a choice on what sort of relationship it wanted with the bloc after Brexit.
"The only thing I can say: without a customs union and outside the single market, barriers to trade and goods and services are unavoidable," Barnier said said on Monday. "Time has come to make a choice."
Barnier said he wanted the United Kingdom to clarify its position on what the future relationship would be.
On Monday, Prime Minister Theresa May's spokesman said Britain had ruled out staying in any customs union with the EU after Brexit.
The extent of any British post-Brexit involvement in the EU's customs union, which binds members into a trade bloc with common external tariffs, has become a major issue of contention inside May's divided government and Conservative Party.
Membership of the, or a, customs union after Brexit, would prevent London from striking trade deals with countries outside the EU in future.
"The key point, as the prime minister has said on many many occasions, is that we need to have our own independent trade policy and be able to strike trade deals with the rest of the world," May's spokesman told reporters.
"We will be leaving the EU and the customs union and it is not government policy to be members of 'the' customs union or 'a' customs union."
He said the official negotiating stance had been set out in a document published in August giving: "two possible options and they are: a highly streamlined customs arrangement, and a new customs partnership with the EU."
The spokesman said Britain was still looking at both options, and no deadline for a decision on which one to pursue had been set.
