MANCHESTER — Shadow Trade Secretary Andrew Griffith has warned against “deeper entanglement” with Europe, claiming it could stop the U.K. from exploiting trade opportunities further afield.

In an interview with Anne McElvoy at the POLITICO Pub at the Conservative Party conference on Monday, Griffith warned of “unintended consequences” if the U.K. aligns more closely to Europe as part of the government’s post-Brexit “reset” with the bloc.

His comments came after a poll commissioned by POLITICO revealed that nearly two-thirds (63 per cent) of British voters backed government plans to negotiate a sanitary and phytosanitary (SPS) agreement with the European Union, which would see the U.K. align with EU animal and plant health standards. Just 22 percent were opposed.

“Of course, we’re all in favor when it’s couched in terms of a poll as: ‘wouldn’t it be good to remove this particular friction and have these particular rules?’,” Griffith said, when asked about the poll. “But then, the flip side that is not surfaced in that opening is that it may, in future, prevent you from exploiting other opportunities.”

In addition, plans to tie the U.K.’s emissions trading schemes with Europe and impose a carbon border tax in line with the EU’s “may impede that very ability to get concessions from India that might unlock big opportunities for financial and professional services,” he added.

“You’ve got to be very careful about understanding what are the unintended consequences.”

Asked about the possibility of a U.K. free trade agreement with Mercosur — a South American trade bloc comprised of Argentina, Bolivia, Brazil, Paraguay and Uruguay — Griffith said he was “very open to it in principle.” But he said it was at odds with the government’s position on Europe “because they’re going for a much deeper entanglement on things like SPS.”

Last week at the Labour Party conference, Trade Minister Chris Bryant described a U.K.-Mercosur deal as a “no-brainer,” adding that he had had “very positive conversations” about it with Argentina and Brazil.

The EU is eyeing a possible signature of its own Mercosur deal on Dec. 5. Bryant said there “must be chapters that we would be able to close which would be almost identical to the EU that we can close very quickly.”