Just 24 hours into Labour conference and already Brexit is back on the menu, with Shadow Foreign Secretary David Lammy insisting this morning that Keir Starmer will somehow deliver a “much better” deal with Europe:

With Labour there will be no return to the single market or the customs union. But Keir Starmer is committed to improving our relations with Europe, delivering Britain a much better deal than we have got and seeking a new security pact to keep our country safe…”

A deal that presumably involves playing by Brussels’ rulebook…

Bank of England Governor Andrew Bailey has admitted Brexit “actually created opportunities” for Britain, accepting that although short-term impacts of leaving the EU have been negative, the Remainer doomsayers have been overly-dramatic. Is he referring to his own warnings in 2016 that Brexit would weaken UK growth? Growth which currently exceeds the EU’s ‘powerhouse’ Germany…

In an interview with Prospect Magazine, Bailey said:

“I think the post-Brexit landscape does give us opportunities. You know, I’ve always said, not everything about EU regulation was best-suited to any national circumstances. If you go back to the period after the referendum, there were pretty dire predictions about the consequences of Brexit for the financial services world, for the City of London. And I think so far those effects have been smaller.” 

Quite a climbdown from his previous views…

Sir Keir’s let the cat out of the bag. In footage obtained by Sky News‘ Sam Coates, taken from a conference of left-wing leaders in Canada last weekend, Starmer admits “we don’t want to diverge” from EU rules, and “the more we share a future together” the better. An extraordinary admission from the man who’s got splinters from sitting on the fence for the last three years…

“Most of the conflict with the UK being outside of the [EU] arises inso far as the UK wants to diverge and do different things to the rest of our EU partners. Obviously the more we share values, the more we share a future together, the less the conflict. Actually different ways of solving problems become available… we don’t want to diverge, we don’t want to lower standards, we don’t want to rip up environmental standards…”

This should hardly be surprising, given he spent years pushing for a second referendum under Corbyn. The whole point of leaving was to become dynamic and nimble, rather than beholden to the whims of bureaucrats hundreds of miles away. Starmer has already admitted he prefers Davos to Westminster. The mask is slipping…

Shadow Economic Secretary to the Treasury Tulip Siddiq was trotted out this morning to tell viewers the news that Starmer is looking to achieve “more of a stronger Brexit deal” in Paris today. Guido was more surprised by the claim that the Brexit deal “is a bit too thin, if you look at countries like New Zealand and Canada, they’ve actually got a stronger Brexit deal … which makes it easier for businesses to cut red tape.” Really?

Last time Guido checked Canada and New Zealand still trade over tariff barriers with the EU and will continue to even when their long-feted individual agreements come into force. The Kiwis will have export duties removed on some food and drink products while Canadian agricultural products, for example dairy and poultry, will still be subject to tariffs even after CETA is ratified by EU member states. The UK has a tariff free Brexit deal. Someone needs to do their trade agreement homework…

Guido reported in July that the Office for Budget Responsibility hired Corbyn-praising high-tax professor Rita de la Feria to its advisory panel. The OBR has now officially announced its full panel. With taxpayer funded quangos like these, who needs leftist think tanks?

Despite the OBR boasting of a “wider range of experts”, none of its advisors are publicly pro-Brexit and those active on Twitter regularly stress their Remainer credentials. The quango, whose senior leadership is populated by Resolution Foundation veterans, can expect top-level analysis at its roundtables, such as former Treasury Director Anita Charlesworth saying that the “point about the Brexit dividend being a fiction can’t be stressed too much or too often.” Oxford’s Michael McMahon will presumably ask if we should “just accept Brexit despite lies that were the basis of many people’s vote?”

Their views on tax make glum reading. Arun Advani, Warwick University Professor, commissioner for the Wealth Tax Commission and the UK’s leading advocate of wealth taxes, spends his time proposing the debunked tax on Twitter and decrying the “neo-capitalist narrative” that tax cuts are good.

McKinsey’s Research and Economics director Tera Allas responded to the news that the marginal tax rate for a taxpaying graduate reached 50% with “As a Finn, my brain is going, ‘and… what’s the big deal?’ I recall marginal tax rates in the 60s and 70s from my youth.” Goldman Sachs’ Kevin Daly thinks we need a property tax. 

UCL’s Wendy Carlin writes papers proposing “a new paradigm, including diminished space for capitalism and greater equality not only of economic endowments but also of dignity and voice.” She also argues that Soviet planning was beneficial in some countries, which “benefited more […] from infrastructure and human capital than they suffered from weak market incentives”. When can we expect the OBR to come out in support of collectivisation?

It must be reassuring for the OBR to consult experts so sanguine in the face of the highest taxes since the Second World War. The millions of working Britons currently being crushed by tax and inflation might prefer if they suggested ways to remedy the situation.

Nicola Sturgeon was up in front of the Covid inquiry this lunchtime, answering questions about the Scottish government’s response to the pandemic. While an inquiry into a deadly pandemic may not sound like the venue for a People’s Vote rally, Nicola tried it anyway, launching into a Brexit tirade before being cut off by Hugo Keith KC:

Sturgeon: “I think every aspect of Brexit has been false economy, if I can put it mildly…”

Keith: “Ms Sturgeon, I’m so sorry, that is a witness box, not a soap box, we cannot allow the political debate of Brexit to be ventilated here…”

Hopefully she was better at answering tough questions at the police station…