What is it with Labour and Brexit? An issue that during Theresa May’s premiership looked like it could rip the Conservative party apart has instead made them electorally invincible – and caused huge problems for the Labour party.
For that reason, Keir Starmer tends to avoid the topic these days, seeking to show that he and his party have ‘moved on’. But some days, he can’t help himself. Yesterday was one of those days. Speaking about the Northern Ireland protocol on the radio, Starmer said:
‘We do need to remind the Prime Minister that he signed on the dotted line: this is what he negotiated. If he’s saying it doesn’t work he should look in the mirror and say, well, did I sign something then that wasn’t very sensible?…He didn’t read it, didn’t understand it or he didn’t tell us the truth about it when he said what it had in it.’
If Labour are offering no credible alternative to the problems created by this government, why should anyone even think about voting for them?
But whether or not Starmer’s criticism of Boris is fair, it begs the question that if Starmer knew what the protocol entailed – not to mention all the other troublesome aspects of Boris’s Brexit deal – why did he whip his MPs to vote for its implementation in December?
Starmer’s supporters might well say that he had little choice.
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