Governments get blown off course by ‘events’, as Harold Macmillan was once rumoured to have observed, and several recent ones should cause Keir Starmer to reflect on his ‘make Brexit work’ policy that makes little economic sense. Any political advantage it provided in last year’s election has all but evaporated.
Reasons to rejoin
Arecent YouGov pollputs Nigel Farage’s Reform UK company/party on 25%, just one point behind Labour, with the Tories in third place under new leader Kemi Badenoch. Labour has lost nearly half (46%) of its 2024 voters,mostly to the openly pro-European Greens and the Lib Dems.
Reform’s surge is perhaps unwittingly now partly being aided and abetted by Labour effectively endorsing Brexit, or at least a benign version of it.
Lib Dem leader Ed Davey has now called for the UK to rejoin the EU’s customs union as a practical move to “turbocharge” the economy and take a step towards the eventual goal of rejoining the EU, a party source has told the BBC.
In the Commons, a 10-minute rule bill introduced by James MacCleary (Lib Dem, Lewes) called for the UK government to negotiate a youth mobility scheme with the EU. This passed without opposition. The second reading will take place on 25 July. A majority of voters are already in favour of freedom of movement in any case.
Badenoch in a speech to the Onward think tank has conceded the Tory party made a mistake by leaving the EU without a growth plan. This is close to an admission that Brexit itself has failed since we were assured the EU was holding us back; Britain would automatically be catapulted to prosperity.
Finally, the return of an unpredictable ignoramus, convicted felon, sexual predator, bully and narcissist to the White House signals a serious threat to the international order. Donald Trump has indicated he intends to ‘remake’ America and with it, the world. A hurricane of change is about to hit the West, and Britain may find it difficult to stand upright on its own.
Labour is already taking us back towards the EU
Labour’s product regulation and metrology bill would give UK ministers the power to unilaterally align with EU regulations, to “make provision … which corresponds, or is similar, to a provision of relevant EU law for the purpose of reducing or mitigating the environmental impact of products”. This copying of EU single market rules for goods to avoid red tape will be done by statutory instrument, so-called Henry VIII powers, not primary legislation – so MPs will be unable to amend or scrutinise.
Starmer wants to ‘reset’ the relationship with Brussels and he aims to negotiate a veterinary services (SPS) agreement, that will almost certainly require dynamic alignment with EU food safety rules. He is also seeking mutual recognition of professional qualifications and an easing of restrictions on touring artists.
Brexit is impeding economic growth
Brexit, by cutting trade with our nearest overseas market, is handicapping the economic growth Labour desperately needs instead of spurring it on. The EU may not be enjoying rapid expansion at the moment, but as the former Tory cabinet minister David Gauke pointed out recently, even if it was totally stagnant, it is still a very large and wealthy market and putting up barriers to trade with it is a mistake.
Brussels is said to be ‘confused’ by Labour’s goal of wanting to “tear down” these barriers while maintaining its red lines and steadfastly refusing to join the single market or the customs union, ensuring that both tariff and regulatory obstacles remain firmly in place. It is simply more cakeism.
Let us not forget the 2016 referendum was simply a Conservative Party plan to destroy UKIP that went wrong. Economic benefits were just inserted as a sweetener by leave advocates. Five Conservatives leaders either wouldn’t or couldn’t “make Brexit work”.
The policy is nothing more than a three-word oxymoron and Starmer must know it.
Starmer should realise he is in a strong position on Brexit
When reality arrives, as it surely will, Starmer will be in a strong position. He has no ideological attachment to Brexit. It wasn’t his idea. He can honestly say I tried my best, we got some small concessions from the EU but not enough to make Brexit work for the British people.
Starmer should find it easy to level with voters and say that Britain needs to rejoin the single market and the EU’s political structures; Brexit is a contradiction that both major parties under six successive leaders, have tried to exploit but failed. He could even lay the blame for any lack of growth on Farage and the Tories.
He wouldn’t face any internal opposition as a Tory PM would. Starmer actively campaigned against leaving the EU, as did most of his cabinet. The parliamentary Labour Party is heavily in favour of the EU, and grassroots membership perhaps even more so.
A course correction is certainly needed. Labour can’t go into the next election with Reform UK snapping at its heels, arguing that Starmer is better at implementing and ‘making Brexit work’ than Farage, the man who is seen as the very embodiment of it. The Labour leader should accept nobody will ever make Brexit ‘work’ or outflank Farage on the subject.
Far better politics would be to expose its intrinsic unworkability, something the British public is already well aware of.
Just 2% believe Brexit has gone very well while another 10% say it’s gone fairly well. Five times as many, almost 60%, think Brexit has gone fairly or very badly. About the same number believe we should rejoin. This is without any leading political figure making a serious case for reversing Brexit. If Labour, backed by captains of industry, were to fill that vacuum, I think the polls would look even more impressive.
There is no need for Starmer to go on pretending that he is prepared to die in a ditch to save an unpopular policy; the entire raison d’être of his main rivals and something with which he has always disagreed. That wouldn’t make any sense, would it?
The right-wing press are already apoplectic and screaming betrayal at the slightest hint of modestly closer EU ties. The prime minister isn’t likely to come under any more fire if he was to announce a complete U-turn.
Starmer may eventually conclude it’s as well to be hung for a sheep as a lamb.
Reversing Brexit: making the case should be an easy sell
Early in 2016, Boris Johnson famously wrote two competing columns for The Telegraph to test the strength of the arguments for Leave or Remain in his own mind. If Starmer were to do the same today – for rejoin or stay out, with all that we now know – I think it’s quite clear the former would be the easiest and most logical, as well as more plausible and therefore, more compelling. I won’t rehearse them all here since we know what they are.
The priceless advantage Johnson and the Leave campaign had in 2016 (as did the Yes campaign in 1975), is that they were on the side ‘selling’ a dream – in Brexit’s case, a fantasy. Remain were left trying to convince voters the dull reality they already knew was the best they could expect, something far more difficult, as any sales rep will tell you. Plainly visible problems with the status quo are difficult to hide and hard to downplay.
Now ‘rejoin’ has all the evidence it needs, while ‘stay out’ would be pushing an old dream that has slowly turned into a nightmare. Just imagine, for example, what a professional campaign could do with Daniel Hannan’s 2016 video depicting life in Britain in 2025 or Vote Leave’s NHS predictions.
Rejoining would not be quick or easy
None of this should be taken as suggesting that rejoining the EU would be an easy task. I am a realist. It will take years, perhaps a decade or more and Britain would have to swallow many bitter pills.
Even before accepting to begin any accession talks, Brussels will need to be convinced that the British public and the main political parties were truly committed and ready for a permanent future inside the EU. The Tories, Reform UK and the right-wing media will not voluntarily support the start of negotiations.
Starmer can’t afford to wait until the Tory membership reaches the conclusion that Brexit has failed by osmosis. Reform members will probably never do that anyway. No, he needs to call and to win a referendum with a significant majority to force the issue, just as Farage and the Eurosceptics did to the Tory and Labour parties in 2016. And he should do it as soon as the time is right.
