Keir Starmer on the Today Programme this morning was asked if rejoining the single market would boost economic growth. He said:
“No, at this stage I don’t think it would. And there’s no case for going back to the EU or going back into the single market. I do think there’s a case for a better Brexit… Do I think […] that going back into years of wrangling, years of uncertainty? No I don’t…”
He also once again dismissed the idea of letting Corbyn stand as a Labour candidate at the next election. Looks like Sir Keir has chosen war with the Twitterati first thing on a Monday…
Sadiq Khan – undeniably one of the frontrunners to steal the crown from Keir Starmer when he gives it up – has finally admitted he wants the UK back in the EU Single Market. Since leaving the EU at the end of 2019, Sadiq had kept pretty schtum about his remainer views, albeit no one ever doubted they’d dissipated. His emphatic comments last night come just two weeks after shadow cabinet member Anna McMorrin was caught also saying Labour wants us back in the free movement zone…
James O’Brien: Should the Labour party at a national level be agitating for rejoining the Single Market
Sadiq Khan: I don’t speak for the national Labour Party but I believe we should. Spot on. The biggest piece of self-inflicted harm ever done to a country leaving the European Union.
Looking at how it was received by anti-Brexit irreconcilables on Twitter last night it appeared Christmas had come early for them…
Tobias Ellwood may have helped the PM out today, as he’s paused his campaign to kick Boris out of Downing Street to begin a campaign to get Britain back into the free market. Accepting uncontrolled immigration…
An article today, published just one week after he took to the Commons encouraging fellow Tory MPs to defenestrate the PM, claims all the problems of inflation, cost of living, the Irish Protocol, exports and business investments would be solved by “rejoining the EU single market”.
“leaving this aspect of the EU was not on the ballot paper, nor called for by either the Prime Minister or Nigel Farage during the 2016 referendum. There was, however, much discussion about returning to a “common market,” which is exactly what I propose.”
Refusing to rejoin, Ellwood argues, would be “churlish”. It’s almost like Ellwood is proving Michael Heseltine right:
Scrapping Boris would re-open and threaten Brexit…
Labour have officially killed another one of their Brexit promises today, they will be formally whipping their MPs to vote for Nick Boles’ ‘Common Market 2.0’ plan tonight. Common Market 2.0 is not a new plan, it’s just a new label stuck on the tired old can of full membership of the Single Market and Customs Union. Which Boles used to say was “the worst of all worlds, neither in nor out, with no power to influence what the EU does and no freedom to do something different”…
Despite the clever spin put on it, Common Market 2.0 does not get the UK out of all the commitments of the EEA/Single Market, including free movement of people, ECJ oversight and large financial contributions. Something which Nick Boles also clarified in the past – while lecturing others about honesty…
As Labour’s 2017 manifesto said in black and white: “Freedom of movement will end when we leave the European Union”. Are there any manifesto commitments on Brexit that Labour haven’t broken yet?
Theresa May has often insisted that Brexiteers should simply swallow the backstop, unpalatable as it is, because there is little chance of it ever being used. This argument has taken a hammer-blow overnight with multiple reports from Brussels that Sabine Weyand, Barnier’s deputy who leads the EU’s negotiations at a technical level, has been telling EU ambassadors that the EU plans to use the backstop as the basis for the future relationship with the UK locked into the customs union and “level playing field” arrangements on social and environmental policy. Confirming all of Brexiteers’ warnings about the UK becoming a permanent vassal state…
According to The Times, Weyand told EU ambassadors:
“We should be in the best negotiation position for the future relationship. This requires the customs union as the basis of the future relationship… They must align their rules but the EU will retain all the controls. They apply the same rules. UK wants a lot more from future relationship, so EU retains its leverage.”
Weyand also said that the UK would be forced to concede on fisheries, one of the last remaining red lines May is attempting to cling to, saying that the UK “would have to swallow a link between access to products and fisheries in future agreements”. The gaping hole at the heart of the Government’s Brexit strategy is that it has not made any preparations to leave the customs union or single market in any meaningful sense. The EU knows this and is exploiting it mercilessly.
Ironically, the one thing it does do is bring the Government’s position almost entirely into line with Labour’s, the only difference being that the Government is still claiming that the customs union and level playing field arrangements will be temporary, while Labour – and evidently the EU – want them to be permanent. May has zero chance of getting the deal through Parliament on Tory and DUP votes alone, with the DUP further hardening their opposition to the deal overnight, however the Labour frontbench is still continuing to dangle the possibility of a shock decision to back the deal. This might be May’s only hoping of getting the deal through Parliament but it would surely signal the death knell of her leadership…
The extremely well-connected Brexit wonk Charles Grant writes in the FT today that the government is considering asking to stay in the single market for goods. Guido also understands this is under active consideration in Number 10. Grant writes that this means de facto accepting ECJ rulings and EU rules and regulations, and potentially a compromise on free movement:
“The challenge, however, is that the EU would never agree to Britain being in the single market for goods unless it adopted all relevant rules, submitted to a punishment mechanism for any deviation, and accepted some oversight by the European Court of Justice… If the UK does request membership of the single market in goods, the EU’s initial reaction will be no. Michel Barnier, the European Commission’s chief negotiator, says the single market is “ binary” — you are either in all or none of it — and must involve free movement of labour.”
If we agree to become a rule-taker on goods and accept ECJ rulings, we are clearly not taking back control of laws. If we have full alignment with Brussels regulations on goods, that severely hampers our ability to strike trade deals with other countries – that is not taking back control of trade policy. If there is a compromise on free movement, that is not taking back control of borders. And it is unfathomable the EU would agree to all this without the UK making significant ongoing payments of vast sums to Brussels. That is not taking back control of money. Staying in the single market for goods crosses May’s own red lines, and goes miles beyond the red lines of Brexiters.
Number 10 may have wagered that they can buy off Brexiters like Boris and Gove by agreeing to spend the Brexit dividend on the NHS (even though this is disingenuous and the NHS money is mostly tax rises). But surely there is no way Boris, Gove, Fox and Davis – or any Brexiter for that matter – could stay in the government if their red lines were rubbed out like this. This would be the softest of Brexits – Cabinet Leavers must stand up to Number 10 on this…
