Leading Conservatives have launched a new attack on Sir Keir Starmer for wanting to “rejoin the EU in all but name” after the Labour leader said he did not want Britain to diverge from EU rules.
Starmer last weekend told the Financial Times at a conference in Montreal that he wanted to rewrite Boris Johnson’s Brexit deal with the EU, which he said was “far too thin” and he wanted a “closer trading relationship”.
The Labour leader also said at a public session at the same centre-left forum that he would not undercut the EU by diverging from key standards, a comment which drew little attention at the time.
Starmer said: “We don’t want to diverge, we don’t want to lower standards, we don’t want to rip up environmental standards, working standards for people that work, food standards and all the rest of it.”
Although Labour said this was not a new policy, footage of the comments, broadcast by Sky News on Thursday, were seized upon by Tories as new evidence of Starmer’s increasingly warm approach to the EU.
James Cleverly, foreign secretary, said: “Keir voted Remain. Then he backed a second referendum. Then he didn’t. Now he wants to rejoin the EU in all but name. What does Labour stand for?”
Michael Gove, levelling up secretary, said Starmer wanted to “return us to the EU effectively and he wants to rerun the Brexit agonies of the past”.
The attacks were a sign of how Starmer’s bolder approach on Brexit — including talking about a negotiation with the EU for a better deal in 2026 — are likely to feature in the general election.
A Labour spokesman said: “The Tories have not used Brexit to diverge on food, environmental or labour standards and if they have a plan to do so then they should come clean with people.”
The spokesman added: “We’ve left the European Union and we’re not going back in any form. We don’t support dynamic alignment. We’re not joining the single market or the customs union.
“We will not be in a situation where we are a rule-taker. Any decisions on what standards we follow will be made in the UK parliament.”
Dynamic alignment is a process where Britain would agree to follow existing EU rules and copy and paste new ones in order to facilitate closer trade. Some were surprised Labour appeared to be ruling it out.
However, Labour told the FT that Starmer would consider dynamic alignment with EU rules in limited areas — a veterinary agreement, for example. Any move would have to approved on a case-by-case basis by the UK parliament.
David Henig, a former official at the UK Department for International Trade now at the European Centre for International Political Economy, said Labour could still align closely in some areas where industry deemed it necessary.
“Ruling out blanket dynamic alignment does not mean that Labour cannot align in areas of its choosing, which is what business and many others are calling for, but this will limit the extent to which border frictions can be reduced,” he added.
Labour has said it will seek a veterinary agreement with the EU to reduce the need for checks on animal and plant products, but only a dynamically aligned deal similar to that used by Switzerland would reduce the need for the most onerous checks.
The EU has, in the past, negotiated veterinary agreements without dynamic alignment — for example with New Zealand — but these have only reduced the frequency of border checks and removed some lines from export health certificates.
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