Keir Starmer’s ‘Brexit Betrayal’ Roils His Own Party

It’s testament to the shock in the United Kingdom over what is being called Prime Minister Starmer’s “Brexit betrayal” that some of the fiercest criticism of the “reset” deal is coming from his own Labour party. The furor emerged ahead of the agreement reached Monday between Sir Keir and the president of the European Commission, Ursula von der Leyen, that is being described by the Telegraph as “Britain’s biggest move toward Brussels” in years.“The worst of both worlds,” is how pro-Brexit critics are framing the backsliding pact, which, per the Telegraph, would again put Britain under the thumb of continental regulations on foodstuffs while also “allowing young EU migrants to move to Britain.” The pact, the Telegraph quotes Labour MPs as warning, “would drive voters into the arms of Reform UK and flood Britain with more foreign” laborers, undercutting Sir Keir’s vows to curb migration.The purported upside of the agreement is to grant British defense firms access to an EU rearmament fund that amounts to 150 billion euros. Is that enough to warrant a retreat on British independence? The Brexit pioneer, and leader of Britain’s surging Reform party, Nigel Farage, is among those answering in the negative. He describes Sir Keir’s demarche as an “abject surrender,” pointing in particular to concessions to the EU’s fishing industry.“In 2016 we voted to take back control of our fishing waters from the EU and give a much-needed lifeline to our fishing industry,” Mr. Farage fumes. Granting access to European boats, Mr. Farage adds, suggests that “Labour have well and truly sold out our fishing industry all in the name of closer ties to an ever-diminishing political union.” Nor, in Mr. Farage’s telling, is this Sir Keir’s “first time bending over backwards to appease EU interests.” The prime minister’s “betrayal of British jobs and national priorities has been evident since the day he took office,” Mr. Farage concludes. His lament echoes a concern these columns voiced more than two years ago when we asked — in “Will Brexit Be Betrayed?” — if Britain could again “lose its status as an independent country.” Fears then centered on a “Europhile blob” that was “trying its best to return the UK to the European fold.”“Brexit is not irreversible,” Lord Michael Heseltine insisted at the time, eyeing a restoration of “Britain’s position in the corridors of European power.” We warned that moves to reverse Brexit would come under the guise of siren songs like, say, rejoining the EU’s custom union, a move that could be pitched as a way to simplify paperwork for businesses. “Such is the slippery slope that would lead to the reversal of British independence,” we cautioned. Sure enough, Sir Keir is touting the deal with Brussels as a way to “slash red tape, grow the British economy and reset relations with the 27-nation trade bloc,” as the AP puts it. The deal would require Britain to adopt what’s euphemized as “dynamic alignment” on food regulations, meaning London would change its own rules to sync with Brussels whenever the EU revises its voluminous policies. That could, too, undercut a nascent trade deal with America.Taking marching orders from Brussels, one Labour MP, Graham Stringer, says, “completely undermines the whole reason for being out.” Indeed, agreeing to saddle Britain’s economy with EU rules is antithetical to what Sir Keir’s predecessor, Liz Truss, has sought to promote — a deregulated, nimble economy, spurred by supply-side tax cuts. Or, as the short-lived premier puts it, a Britain that is “more like Singapore on steroids than a Norway on valium.”“Britain is back on the world stage,” Sir Keir crowed today after his parley with Ms. von der Leyen. If so, though, the Labour prime minister would appear to be willing to tolerate a bit part for the United Kingdom in this global production — and risk, as noted above, not only betraying the promise of Brexit but driving voters in the next election into the arms of Mr. Farage’s Reform. It may end up as a race against the clock.

Keir Starmer’s ‘Brexit Betrayal’ Roils His Own Party

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