Can Starmer now be trusted on Brexit?

The Labour leader's instincts on the EU are similar to those of Blair, but there is good reason to think Keir will stick to his promises

Source - Daily Telegraph ,- 28/11/22

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eir Starmer has ample reasons for his not-so-subtle slight-of-hand that enabled him to take the Labour leadership by telling party members exactly what they wanted to hear, even though he obviously never had the slightest intention of fulfilling the promises he made during the campaign.

After all, these were the same people who had elected Jeremy Corbyn — twice — as Labour leader, so they can hardly be surprised when a smoother operator takes full advantage of their gullibility.

The problem he faces does not come from his own rank and file — most of whom now seem reconciled to being led to general election victory on Starmer’s terms — but from a far more important section of the country: the voters. However impressive the leader’s cynical manoeuvring has been, however necessary more grown-up voters recognise Starmer’s tactics are, is there a risk that they will suspect themselves to be the next victims of Starmer’s cynicism?

Of all the bear traps waiting to slow down his progress to Number 10, none looms larger than Brexit. The Tony Blair Institute for Global Change has just produced a paper that recommends that UK ministers are given the power to align Britain with EU rules, duplicating the bloc’s laws and regulations in UK law. This, it is argued, will make trade more seamless and will even help solve the impasse over the Northern Ireland Protocol.

It's just the latest in a series of recent initiatives by various players that seem aimed at rolling back Brexit, if not reversing it altogether. If UK and EU laws are identical, after all, the leap back into the bloc as a full member will seem far less of a change when the time comes.

There is little doubt that the institute — as well as most Labour MPs and a large portion of commentators, academics, showbusiness celebs and civil society — would applaud that end. The question is whether Starmer can be taken at his word that he won’t countenance a renegotiation of Boris Johnson’s Brexit deal or allow any change in our current relationship that permits the return of freedom of movement. During the 2020 Labour leadership contest, he pledged to “defend freedom of movement as we leave the EU”; today he describes his rejection of freedom of movement as a “red line” he will not cross.

And, of course, Starmer remains in the long shadow of his record as shadow Brexit secretary under Corbyn, during which time he not only campaigned to reverse Brexit in a rerun referendum, but also visited Brussels, reportedly to persuade the commission not to reach an exit deal with Johnson’s government.

That’s quite a reputation to live down to. The fact that Starmer regularly speaks with and takes advice from Tony Blair will not encourage EU-sceptics to take him at his word or to regard his recent conversion to enthusiastic Brexiter as genuine. 

It is also accepted that even if the Labour leader’s recent commitments to “making Brexit work” and eschewing the single market and customs union are real, he is in a very small minority in his own shadow cabinet, most of whom would bite his hand off if he offered them a way back into the bloc, euro membership and all.

The question mark over Starmer’s commitment to Brexit can only be removed through time and observation of his actions once in Number 10. Accusations, mostly from the Left, that he cannot be trusted to keep his word, can be easily dismissed as the grievance of a faction with no credibility and zero role within the modern Labour Party.

Were it to turn out that Starmer was indeed seeking to perform the same confidence trick on the country that he so successfully managed against his own party, the consequences for his government would be catastrophic, and he surely knows this. There is a more believable and rational explanation for his volte-face on the EU and it is this: that he recognises that political parties do not win, or rarely win office on their own terms. Starmer knows that if Labour were to re-open the Brexit wounds that scuppered his party in 2019, his time in office would be short and chaotic.

Deep down he may not even believe what he says about the EU and freedom of movement, but is intelligent enough to know that in order to win office, parties need to compromise. Further, a pre-election promise not even to entertain hopes of a return to the single market must, he knows, be maintained once in office: unlike the position of Labour leader, the office of prime minister is regularly up for review by the electorate.

So we should accept that Starmer’s Damascene conversion is, if not utterly genuine, then, in political terms at least, a non-negotiable plank of the next Labour government’s platform. Just because Starmer himself may wish the situation and the facts were different, does not mean he cannot live with the consequences of his own promises. And given his recent record on disciplining errant front benchers, it would be a brave shadow (or actual) cabinet colleague who challenged him on that.