I can’t decide if Kier Starmer is being very smart or very stupid over Labour’s Brexit policy. He goes in front of the TV cameras and claims there is “no case” for rejoining the EU or even the single market and he will ‘make Brexit work' in some mysterious way that hasn’t yet been tried. It's as if he believes there is a magic formula that only he knows. Making Brexit 'work' is in my opinion an oxymoron. It would only be possible if Brexit was only ever intended to make Britain and Britons poorer and weaker and I'm sure that's not his intention.
I assume Labour is carrying out polling all the time and must be getting the same sort of feedback that published pollsters are getting. If so, it must be clear to him that Brexit is becoming one of the least popular policies since the poll tax (another policy from an opaque right-wing think tank, the Adam Smith Institute). At 61% to 39% it's not that far off and I wouldn't be surprised if it becomes less popular as time goes on.
The Opinium poll carried out in the past week or so has some interesting stuff with respondents saying that on balance ending of freedom of movement has been bad for citizens (by 39 to 25%) and bad for business (by 44 to 22%). Of those who would vote to rejoin (58%), 61% wouldn't be put off if we had to join the Euro.
So, it's all rather puzzling, isn't it? Especially so since there is a clip of him in 2018 when he was shadow Brexit secretary saying membership of both the SM and the CU is "crucial."
Keir Starmer in 2018:"the benefits of the single market and customs union are crucial.....we must have something that retains the benefits of the single market and customs union..."https://t.co/O9CBxkNTM4— Jim Pickard (@PickardJE) December 5, 2022
Whatever is driving Labour policy it certainly isn't ignorance about the damage Brexit and the UK trading with the EU27 on a bare-bones deal is doing, which is much clearer now than it ever was in 2018. No, it's a political calculation and he needs to be careful that the Tory party, famously ruthless when it comes to power, doesn't change its mind on Brexit before he does.
There is little risk of that at the moment but as soon as the public turns decisively against Brexit the party will ditch it as quickly as they did the poll tax.
Neil Kinnock had a letter in The Guardian yesterday where he urges Starmer to call it out, saying "it’s time to fully expose the real bills for the Tories’ bungled Brexit. The account is true. It’s tragic. It’s public service information, not “remoaning”. And it puts the blame where it belongs – on the mendacious governments, not the voters who hoped for 'exact same benefits' with the bonus of 'control'."
The BBC have a report about the state of British farming quoting NFU chief Minette Batters claiming that the UK is "sleepwalking into a food supply crisis." Ms Batters was on Radio 4 this morning just before eight o'clock talking about it with an emphasis on getting more EU seasonal workers, which is of course a Brexit issue.
She was talking mainly about eggs but also about fruit and vegetables and the rising costs of feed and fertilisers. Apparently, there are 7,000 fewer registered agricultural companies in the UK than in 2019.
Steve Dresser, the boss of Grocery Insight, told the BBC, "It's clear that we [are] facing real challenges in our supply chain and as a nation, we should be looking to back our farming community, especially as Brexit has made things harder around importing foods."
He might have added that Brexit has also made it even harder and more expensive to export food products to the EU while opening our own markets to cheaper food from Australia and New Zealand produced to lower standards.
Farmers are facing a quadruple whammy, rising costs, shortage of labour, lower-cost competition and barriers to their main export market. Brexit is responsible for two of them and Starmer is prevented from addressing it while he has a self-imposed vow of silence. He needs to think about it, it's not really tenable.
