Brexit fears as Keir Starmer refuses to rule out rejoining EU five times | Politics | News

Sir Keir Starmer has repeatedly refused to rule out the possibility of Britain rejoining the EU in his lifetime. The Prime Minister, who supported remaining in the EU during the 2016 Brexit campaign, ruled out such a move ahead of last year’s general election.

However, he failed to make the same promise once again when asked five times in an interview with The Observer. He told the newspaper: “We’ve gone back and stopped debating whether we should have opted for Brexit.”

It comes after Deputy Prime Minister David Lammy refused seven times earlier this week to rule out a Brexit reversal.

Arch-Remainer told The News Agents podcast: “It is obvious that leaving the EU has caused huge damage to our economy, taken us out of a key market and created serious friction.

“Lies were being sold by those who thought leaving the EU would be a good thing.”

He also suggested that rejoining the customs union would boost slowing economic growth.

He said: “That’s not our policy at the moment. That’s not where we are at the moment.”

“But you can see that countries like Türkiye that have a customs union are apparently benefiting and seeing growth in their economies, and that’s obvious.”

But Cabinet minister Pat McFadden rejected proposals for the UK to rejoin the customs union in an interview with Sky News’ Trevor Phillips on Sunday.

He said: “We’ve signed three trade deals this year and if you’re going to join a customs union that’s quite a challenge.”

When asked whether the Deputy Prime Minister was wrong in his words, the Minister of Work and Pensions said: “I think the Prime Minister expressed this very clearly in terms of the grand architecture of the EU. By the grand architecture, I mean the single market and the customs union.”