Amid all the euphoria about Boris Johnson sealing a final Brexit deal and the breaking-off of politics for pared down Christmas celebrations, perhaps you didn’t notice Keir Starmer losing the next election.
Well, I did. And while I cannot be quite certain that Sir Keir has blown it absolutely for 2024 – events dear boy, events and all that – the evidence that he has done so would definitely pass a “balance of probabilities” test.
Starmer’s momentum horribilis came during his Christmas Eve press conference responding to the news of Johnson’s deal.
Asked what a future Labour administration would do about a deal that he clearly considered sadly lacking in many respects, the Labour leader’s true disposition just slipped out. He replied: “Of course we would want to improve on it, but we would have to operate to this deal. It is very important that we are in a position to say we go into that election building on this deal.”
The Labour leader has been caught on video letting the cat out of the bag
One or two sharp-eyed commentators immediately clocked the significance of these remarks. As Tom Newton Dunn of Times Radio put it on Twitter, the remarks implied Labour would rewrite the agreement. Newton Dunn tweeted: “Starmer has just fired the first shot of the 2024 general election – and made it, guess what, another Brexit election.”
Shortly afterwards Labour sources briefed him as follows: “We are not reopening it, we are not rewriting it and we’re not proposing any legal changes.”
When unnamed sources issue “clarifications” like that about on-camera statements just made by the party leader, one can be sure that they know that a dangerous message has been conveyed.
But it is already too late. Because, as the Remainer who initially promised to respect the referendum verdict and then went back on his word by trying to overturn Brexit, Starmer cannot rely on the benefit of the doubt in the eyes of his lost Red Wall Leave voters.
They have also clocked that he was prepared to “kneel for a deal” by pressing Boris Johnson to rule out the possibility of ending the transition period without one. That would have massively undermined UK leverage, leaving us having to accept whatever scraps the EU Commission was prepared to throw.
The December YouGov monthly tracker on Starmer shows him taking a particular beating in the eyes of working-class voters and leave voters. Some 48 per cent of the latter group now say he is doing a bad job – up eight points in a month – with just 30 per cent saying he is doing well, down eleven points since November.
Johnson’s Brexit deal has widely and correctly been written up as being based on a strategic decision to prioritise sovereignty over frictionless trade. In this regard, securing zero tariff and zero quotas terms is impressive, but there is still a discernible burden in terms of extra paperwork and regulatory checks (the PM was clearly wrong to say there would be no non-tariff barriers, as Robert Peston noted at the Downing Street press conference). So any “improvement” envisaged by Starmer can surely only mean diluting regained sovereignty in return for less trade friction.
The Labour leader has been caught on video letting the cat out of the bag. The Conservatives can now open-up on him at their leisure. What hard-won sovereignty does he envisage sacrificing in pursuit of allegedly superior trading arrangements? Will he pledge to give the people a veto on any new agreements he enters into with Brussels by holding a referendum on them? Given his conduct on matters EU over the past four years, isn’t he really limbering up to start a long march to rejoining? Or is he merely proposing to restart the salami-slicing of UK sovereignty by means of a never-ending series of tweaks? And remember Labour has plenty of form on this, stretching back to when Peter Hain sought to pass off the proposed European Constitution as a mere “tidying up exercise”.
There are no good answers to these questions for Starmer. They all involve him sinking deeper into a quagmire from which his advisers are desperate for him to escape.
On the referendum one in particular he is damned either way. Guaranteeing one will signal to voters that he proposes to reopen the Brexit can of worms again, with all the delights that would entail. Refusing to do so will signal that he still refuses to respect the verdict of the people as regards relations with Brussels.
If Starmer is hoping his party will help him move the issue of EU relations into the rear-view mirror then he is also going to be sadly disappointed. The ranks of Labour MPs and Labour peers contain scores of fanatical supporters of EU membership. Up to 50 of his MPs are expected to vote against the deal in the Commons this week. On social media many Labour activists are already talking about devoting their energies to a nascent “Rejoin” campaign.
The events of recent days all but guarantee that Labour will go into the 2024 election widely perceived as a party in favour of putting the UK back into the orbit of the EU. That will go down just fine in the big city and university seats that Labour already holds. It will be a disaster in the working-class towns they need to win back.
Starmer the Remainer who plotted against the people and bowed down to Brussels will be seen as Starmer the Rejoiner preparing to plot against them once more. It will take a truly epic degree of incompetence and complacency for the Tories to blow it from here.
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