In the Commons on 12 October 2026 Andy Burnham answered a direct question on a customs union with 'I am not prepared to revisit the red lines in our manifesto' (Hansard); counted as ruling it out on Pavlo's decision of 14 October.
(adjacent). The market resolves on hansard.parliament.uk and on gov.uk speeches and transcripts: YES if a serving minister's contribution dated 14 September to 14 October 2026 states that the government will not join or rejoin the EU customs union, in those or equivalent words; reports of unnamed sources, party conference remarks not published on gov.uk, and statements that accept a customs union resolve NO. If neither page has it, BBC and the Guardian reports of an on-the-record ministerial statement settle it, and silence by 23:59 BST on 14 October resolves NO.
We found six public delays of EU talks since 2020. We looked for every reported delay of a planned EU-UK round of talks or summit, and added the EU's talks with Switzerland, a similar partner. For each one we asked whether either side named a day for the next meeting within 31 days. A month or a season without a day does not count.