This week in Brexitland, July 25, 2024

How long can Starmer realistically hold back on agreeing a customs union with the EU? Less time than he thinks

One of the key planks of Labour’s strategy during the general election was to insist that “Starmer the Remainer” was a thing of the past. He was as strident on this as he could possibly have been. “I’ve been really clear about not rejoining the EU, the single market or the customs union – or return to freedom of movement.” As statements go, that leaves little room for discussion. We’re out of every EU institution. Forever, or at least as long as Keir Starmer is in charge. However, I have my doubts about this, one of the few things I share with most of the people who write for the Daily Mail.

There are three things to seriously consider here. One, Starmer and Reeves’ grasp for growth; two, the changing face of public opinion on our relationship with Europe and with it, political reality; and three, the nature of Starmer’s Janus-like public persona.

Starting with the growth issue: while I understand why Starmer made the assurances he did about us never rejoining the single market and the customs union - he didn’t want to have to fight the election about Brexit and possibly alienate voters who had returned to Labour over the issue - if you look at it now, with the election over, his position on this is deeply illogical. He wants to align Britain with the EU as much as humanly possible - and yet doesn’t want to be in a customs union with the rest of Europe. Logically speaking, you either want to be in a customs union, so you get the full benefit of that, or you want to diverge and take advantage of that freedom. Now, as I have said many times here, the advantages of being in the customs union exponentially outweight any of the upsides to having our own trade policy, as all of the terrible deals signed by the last few Tory governments have aptly demonstrated. But to fully align and not be in the customs union is a silly, silly idea. It will begin to seem ridiculous to the public before long.

And that’s where we come to point two, public opinion. The fact is, the vast majority of people who voted Labour think Brexit was a mistake. That so many people see it as a national error is one of the contributing factors to their landslide victory. Almost four-fifths of Labour voters think Brexit was at the very least a relatively bad thing. You have to wonder how long Labour can hold to the ludicrous position outlined above - total alignment but without either the benefits of the customs union or a single decent trade deal - without parts of their electoral coalition starting to flake off. Of course, the Lib Dems could capitalise on all of this by becoming vocally, stridently pro-European again, but we’ll wait and see if that happens.

Finally, we come to Starmer’s, how shall I put this, history of politically convenient stances on things. If you go back to his 2020 leadership campaign, he came up with ten pledges. They were radically left-wing, back when Starmer was trying to convince the membership he was continuity Corbyn. Amongst them was this pledge: “Full voting rights for EU nationals. Defend freedom of movement as we leave the EU.” Sufficed to say, that isn’t Starmer’s publicly stated position any longer.

What I’m saying here is that he clearly adopted those positions because they were politically advantageous at the time; he dropped them when the political equation changed. It strongly suggests he would pivot towards a more pro-European position and set of policies if the political equation changed yet again. As I’ve outlined in point two, I think that will happen. So, there is reason to be optimistic here, regardless of what Starmer said during the campaign, what he is saying now or what he will almost certainly say on this subject in the coming months.

Of course, it would be great if the Lib Dems could pressure them on this front. It would help a great deal. Just saying.

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