Britain must rejoin the EU's customs union if it is to recover the economic losses caused by Brexit, George Osborne has said. The former Tory chancellor who was forced to resign a decade ago after being on the losing side with then-prime minister David Cameron in the Brexit referendum said a “conspiracy of silence” by politicians and business and union leaders is hindering vital moves to rebuild links to the EU. He says it “will be hard to rejoin the EU anytime soon” but said rejoining the customs union would be a relatively easy short-term remedy. He spoke to The Independent's editor-in-chief Geordie Greig in a In a wide ranging and candid interview covering everything from his role in bringing the Bayeux Tapestry to London to the challenges facing Kemi Badenoch.