Nick Tyrone Nick Tyrone

Is Starmer’s Labour plotting to reopen the Brexit deal?

(Getty images)

Brexit is done and dusted, but when it comes to playing politics on the UK’s departure from the EU, the Labour party is still managing to get itself in a muddle. Rachel Reeves, the shadow chancellor, is the latest Labour frontbencher to send confusing messages about Brexit to voters. 

Starmer’s party, we are told, wants to come to an arrangement with the European Union on recognition of professional standards, something Boris Johnson’s deal lacks. Labour is also seeking a bespoke veterinary agreement with the EU to overcome problems inherent in the Northern Ireland Protocol as it stands. The party also wants to make it easier for British bands to tour on the continent. Yet all the time, Reeves is sticking to the line that Labour would not reopen the Brexit deal. It doesn’t take much to realise that this approach doesn’t add up.

The shadow chancellor had this to say about the Brexit deal:

If Labour think that our new relationship with the EU, as negotiated by Boris Johnson, is insufficient, they need to say so in plain terms

‘We’ve left the EU and the government secured a trade deal at the eleventh hour full of holes. So far they have so far made no effort to build on it to make life easier for our British exporters and businesses. Labour would not reopen the deal, but we would fix those holes so we can buy, make and sell more in Britain, and so our fantastic British businesses can sell their goods and services across Europe and around the world.’

In other words, Labour is proposing to reopen the Brexit deal while saying explicitly they ‘would not reopen the deal’.

Haven’t Labour already had had their fill of getting Brexit wrong? It seems not. The thing voters have hated most about Labour’s position on Brexit since the referendum campaign kicked off is how incomprehensible it has always been; it changes all the time, but usually into something equally or more baffling than it was before.

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