Starmer Reopens Labour’s Brexit Wounds and Says he Wants to Renegotiate Deal

Labour leader says he will try to negotiate a better trade deal with the EU if he becomes the next prime minister.

Labour Party leader Sir Keir Starmer is pictured in July 2022. Peter Byrne/PA

The Labour Party leader Sir Keir Starmer—who was shadow Brexit secretary under Jeremy Corbyn’s leadership—has said he wants to renegotiate Britain’s trade deal with the European Union.

In an interview with the Financial Times, Sir Keir said: “Almost everyone recognises the deal Johnson struck is not a good deal, it’s far too thin. As we go into 2025 we will attempt to get a much better deal for the UK.”

Sir Keir spent the weekend meeting other leaders of the progressive left leaders in Montreal, including Canada’s Prime Minister Justin Trudeau.

Later this week he is expected to meet France’s President Emmanuel Macron.

Sir Keir was a key part of the Labour shadow cabinet in 2019 when they were destroyed in a landslide election by Boris Johnson’s Conservative Party, which promised to “get Brexit done,” a pledge which appealed to pro-Brexit Labour constituencies in the Midlands and the North of England.

These so-called Red Wall constituencies switched to the Tories in 2019 and gave Mr. Johnson a healthy majority.

Labour voters in Red Wall seats, which the party is desperate to win back, may fear Sir Keir reopening the wounds of Brexit.

But Labour has long been critical of the deal which Mr. Johnson negotiated and the Trade and Cooperation Agreement is up for review in 2025.

Labour Rules out Rejoining Customs Union

Sir Keir has ruled out rejoining the customs union or single market but said he was confident he could secure a better deal from Brussels.

He told the FT: “I do think we can have a closer trading relationship as well. That’s subject to further discussion. We have to make it work. That’s not a question of going back in. But I refuse to accept that we can’t make it work.

Sir Keir, said: “I think about those future generations when I say that. I say that as a dad. I’ve got a 15-year-old boy and a 12-year-old girl. I’m not going to let them grow up in a world where all I’ve got to say to them about their future is, it’s going to be worse than it might otherwise have been. I’ve got an utter determination to make this work.”

Last week Sir Keir said he would be willing to consider a deal which would mean Britain taking a quota of illegal immigrants from Europe.

He said he would also seek an EU-wide returns agreement for asylum seekers who arrive in Britain, which may involve a “quid pro quo” of accepting quotas of migrants from the bloc.

Prime Minister Rishi Sunak, and Home Secretary Suella Braverman, have both accused Labour of planning to agree to a quota deal with the EU which would see the UK becoming a “dumping ground” for 100,000 migrants each year.

But Sir Keir said the suggestion was “complete garbage.”

He told Sky News on Sunday: “The idea that we’re going to join the EU scheme on quotas is complete nonsense. We’re not an EU member and that wasn’t what I was talking about.”

Pat McFadden, who was appointed to the shadow cabinet by Sir Keir earlier this month, told BBC One’s “Sunday With Laura Kuenssberg”, “I don’t think it’s going to be an allocation of numbers, we’re talking about individual cases where a child may have strong family links here.”

“It’s not ‘we’ll take this many, you take that many’, that’s not the kind of negotiation we want to have,” added Mr. McFadden.

Earlier Sir Keir said he was “absolutely focused on growing the economy” if and when Labour wins the next election, which must be held by January 2025 at the latest.

Sir Keir ‘Focused on Growing Economy’

He said: “If the economy in the past 13 years had grown at the same rate as the last Labour government, we’d have tens of billions of pounds to spend on our public services without raising a penny more in tax. And that’s where I want that laser focus.”

Leader of the Commons Penny Mordaunt, recently compared Sir Keir to the character Ken from the Barbie movie and said he had “zero balls.”

But Sir Keir retaliated and said: “I just think when a government has completely run out of energy and ideas and the ability to shape or change anything, they go down this rabbit hole of ridiculous insults. It’s water off a duck’s back to me.”

PA Media contributed to this report.