Making Brexit work
Sir Keir Starmer has spelled out how he would “make Brexit work”, said The Guardian. “This is good news.” The Labour leader, once a staunch Remainer, knows all too well how much damage has been done by our decision to leave the EU; polls suggest that four in ten Britons want to rejoin it. “But Sir Keir does not want to restart the wars of the referendum.” He doesn’t want to rejoin the EU, or its single market, or even its customs union. Instead, his “pragmatic” plan aims to tackle the most “acute” problems. He wants to reduce trade barriers with an “agri-food” deal that would allow products to move easily between the UK and the EU – and which he hopes would also resolve the main rows over the Northern Ireland Protocol. He wants the mutual UK-EU recognition of professional qualifications; British involvement in EU science programmes; and visa-free travel for musicians. Formulating sensible policy to get us out of the mess of Brexit is difficult. But Starmer’s position is “astute” in that “it offers to meet Remainers’ arguments without offending Leavers”.
“Make Brexit work”? It’s a ludicrous slogan, said The Independent, because it is “impossible” to make Brexit work. “It is an inherently damaging project, incompatible with a stable economy, the Good Friday Agreement, and amicable relations with Britain’s closest neighbours and allies.” Yet just as public opinion is turning against the Brexit “disaster”, Starmer is stopping Labour from capitalising on that shift. He’d be better off rediscovering his inner Remainer. “If you trust a word of Keir Starmer’s Brexit promises you need your head tested,” said The Sun. He’s a “phony”, who swore to respect the referendum result, then led the campaign to overturn it. Starmer was so desperate for a second vote that he brought down Theresa May’s plan for a soft Brexit, “not realising it was – word for word – what he had already suggested to her”. When he was campaigning for the Labour leadership, he promised that he’d “defend free movement for migrants”. Now this “forked-tongued careerist” has abandoned even that. Besides, his new proposals involve a return to “slavishly” adopting EU rules in key areas such as “food, farming and chemicals”. That would be a “surrender”.
We have to be honest, said William Hague in The Times. We have precious little to show for Brexit, to set against the “gruesome” trade figures, the stagnation in foreign investment, the poor relations with Europe and the damage to the Union. But Starmer is right that there’s “no going back”. It would simply be too divisive. What’s completely lacking from his plan, though, is “a sense of positive opportunity”. Britain does now have “advantages” it didn’t have before. Why aren’t we building on our new regulatory freedoms to give the UK the edge in areas such as life sciences, gene-editing and AI? Brexit Britain needs more than this cautious “rearguard” action. It needs a vision for the future.