‘We’ve left the EU. The argument is now over’
Sir Keir Starmer says that Labour will not campaign to rejoin bloc if he leads party to election victory
Labour will not take the UK back into the European Union if it wins the next general election, Sir Keir Starmer declares today as he says that the Brexit issue is now settled. And the Labour leader draws a line under Jeremy Corbyn’s leadership and his apparent questioning of British institutions and symbols by saying his party should not be “shy” about being seen as “patriotic”.
But Sir Keir gives warning that the estimated £300 billion cost of paying for the UK’S response to the coronavirus pandemic needs to be borne by middle and higher earners in tax rises.
In an interview on this weekend’s edition of Chopper’s Politics Podcast, which is free to listen to on The Telegraph’s website, Sir Keir, a Remainer who campaigned for a “softer” Brexit when Mr Corbyn was leader, makes it clear that he wants to move on from the row which split the country for the past three and a half years.
Admitting Labour’s decision to fudge its response to the Brexit referendum in part helped drive the party to the 80-seat defeat against Boris Johnson’s Tory party in December’s election, Sir Keir says the question over EU membership is over.
He says: “We’ve left the EU, and therefore, the Leave/remain argument is over and the only argument now is what sort of a deal we have with the EU and what sort of deals we have with the rest of the world. It’s very important for the Labour Party to be clear that whatever position we and others may have taken in the last three and a half, four years, that divide between Leave and Remain is now over.”
The 57-year-old, who became Labour leader on April 4, went further saying that if he leads the party to victory at the next general election, expected in 2024, he would not try to take the UK back into the EU, telling the podcast: “I don’t think there’s a case for rejoining the EU and I’m certainly not making that case.”
Sir Keir made a clear break from the recent history of the Labour Party, when questions were raised over Mr Corbyn’s republican views.
“I’m proud that we’re patriotic, I don’t think we should be shy about it, I think it is something we should be very proud of and I think the fact thousands and thousands of activists give up their free time to try and improve our country is a real reflection of just how patriotic, they are,” he adds.
Sir Keir says that he would not refuse to attend a state banquet given in honour of Donald Trump, as Mr Corbyn did during the US president’s visit to the UK in April last year.
“I’ve never shied away from these events,” he says. “I’ve attended them when I was director of public prosecutions. No doubt I’ll attend them as leader of the Labour Party.”
In another break from the Corbyn past, Sir Keir makes it clear he is determined to put the party’s antisemitism controversies to bed, saying: “I don’t want a Labour Party that’s just got an effective mechanism for dealing with anti-semitism.
“I want a Labour party that hasn’t got anti-semitism in it.”
Sir Keir has so far been judged to have performed well in his three encounters with Mr Johnson at the dispatch box during Prime Minister’s Questions and he admits that the deathly quiet House of Commons chamber − deserted due to MPS’ social distancing during the Covid-19 crisis − is helping him, as he had expected there to be “a lot of Tories trying to put you off your pace”.
Unlike Mr Corbyn, who was criticised for rarely stepping outside his ideological comfort zone, Sir Keir wants his policies and ideas to be challenged, and so is inviting nonlabour activists to his “Call Keir” events which are held online on Thursdays until he can travel around the country.
He says: “I am keen to make absolutely clear that the Labour Party wants to appeal very broadly across the whole population … It’s very, very important to be clear about reaching out, wanting to reach all sections of society.
“I actually want people who are not Labour voters and I want them to challenge me, be frank with me and be blunt with me.
“So my preference is to speak to those people around the country rather than having rallies of Labour members and supporters.”
That includes trying to win readers of The Daily Telegraph round to his position. He says: “What I am keen to do is to make absolutely clear that the Labour Party wants to appeal very broadly across the whole population and that’s why I’d be very interested in doing things with The Telegraph.”
Sir Keir is trying to be constructive in his dealings with the Tory Government during the coronavirus crisis. He says: “On lockdown − and the conditions of lockdown − we’ve been absolutely full square with the Government.” But he criticises ministers for being too slow on testing and personal protection equipment for NHS and care workers. This week he scored a victory when he forced Mr Johnson to agree to his idea to scrap a £400 surcharge on migrant healthcare workers, 24 hours after Mr Johnson told him at PMQS that he would do no such thing.
Now he has another idea on how the PM can resolve the impasse with
‘The only argument now is what sort of a deal we have with the EU and with the rest of the world’
‘I am keen to make it clear that the Labour Party wants to appeal very broadly across the whole population’
unions and some councils over whether schools in England should reopen on June 1 − set up a task force comprising parents, unions, councils and officials to agree a mutually acceptable return date.
Sir Keir says: “The task of the Prime Minister is to build consensus, to give people confidence. Most of the polling I’ve seen … show that parents are about 50/50, they’re genuinely worried … Rather than accentuating the differences here, the Prime Minister should pull a task force together, and say, ‘Right, we are going to lead from the front.’
“If we can get a consensus we will give people confidence because what people need more than anything at the moment is confidence. If the Prime Minister said, ‘I’ll set up a task force of teaching unions, parents, local authorities and government, everybody else who needs to be around the table, to put your shoulder to the wheel, let’s get on with this,’ I would certainly support that.”
Sir Keir said his children − an 11-year-old son and a nine-year-old daughter whom he has never named publicly − are already at local schools in Camden, north London, as his wife, Victoria, has key worker status because she works in occupational therapy in the NHS.
He says: “Our children have been in school throughout [the coronavirus crisis] and it’s a reminder that this perception that schools are shut at the moment and the question of whether we open them is wrong. “They’re open at the moment. Teachers, staff are on the frontline, every day. The question is, can we increase the numbers of children going back into school? And I want that to happen as soon as it can. But of course it’s got to be safe.”
I ask him if this means he cannot understand the pressures for working parents who are also trying to teach their children at home.
“I think it is very difficult,” he says. “Everybody is struggling with home-schooling, and of course home-schooling is much easier if you’ve got space and lots of devices in your house – much more difficult if you’re in overcrowded accommodation and you haven’t got devices. So I completely understand that.”
Sir Keir has been treading a fine line by not condemning the National Education Union, which has been resisting the June 1 return unless five tests − covering lower Covid-19 cases, a national plan for social distancing, better access to testing, protocols for outbreaks and protection for vulnerable staff − are satisfied, describing them as “perfectly reasonable”.
On how Britons will eventually have to stump up to pay for the measures taken during the crisis, Sir Keir agrees with the PM on one thing − there will be no return to the austerity policies of the Tory governments (circa 2010 to 2018). But Sir Keir goes further than Mr Johnson, and admits that higher earners will have to shoulder a larger tax burden when the time comes. He says: “We don’t yet know what the damage to the economy is. And I don’t think it’s therefore sensible and possible to say, in which bracket will
the percentage of tax be but the broad principle that those with the broader shoulders should contribute more is one that I think the vast majority of people subscribe to. It has got to be balanced, it’s got to be reasonable but it’s that principle which has been the backbone of economic thinking for quite some time.”
Questions have been raised about why Sir Keir is happier to be known as plain “Keir Starmer” in the daily Hansard reports of House of Commons proceedings, and not use his title, which he was awarded for services to law and criminal justice after he stood down as head of the Crown Prosecution Service in 2014.
He says: “I’m really proud about that … but I just don’t particularly like titles. It was ingrained in the staff to call the director of public prosecutions ‘director’. So I said, ‘Don’t call me director, call me Keir.’
“So this is not to do with the knighthood, it is that ‘Keir’ has served me very, very well in my life, and I much prefer it.”