Brexit betrayal warning as Labour Rejoiners on verge of toppling Keir | Politics | News
Will Britain rejoin the European Union? (Image: AFP via Getty Images)
Brexit veterans who warned Britain was in danger of “betrayal” will meet next week as Labor leadership candidates who want the country to once again join the European Union vie to replace Sir Keir Starmer. Former Health Secretary Wes Streeting has nailed his pro-EU stance to the mast at a Labor Party meeting, declaring he wants the UK “to return to the European Union one day”. Greater Manchester Mayor Andy Burnham, the top-voted candidate to replace Sir Keir, has already said he wants “to see this country rejoin the European Union” during his lifetime.
Trade expert Shanker Singham likened panicked Labor politicians pushing for a closer relationship with the EU to “lemmings who decided the safest place was to jump off a cliff”.
Leading Brexiteers, who believe the crisis at the top of the Labor Party amounts to a threat of “Brexit betrayal”, will gather in London on Tuesday for an all-day conference organized by the Freedom Association. He warns that Sir Keir, who wants to remove trade barriers in a deal in which Britain would “adjust” to certain EU rules, is a “serious threat to Brexit” but that “alternative prime ministers have been worse”.
Mr Burnham is expected to contest the Makerfield by-election and then challenge Sir Keir for the Labor leadership. The contest will see the Labor candidate and Nigel Farage’s Reform UK put forward radically different visions of the country’s future.
Deputy Reform leader Richard Tice attacked Mr Burnham, Labour’s leading candidate, saying: “Andy Burnham is another obsessed EU remainer in open rebellion against the will of the British people. His election would reveal another EU fanatic in Labor ranks determined to betray 17 million voters and drag us back into the EU’s broken economic model.”
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Former Brexit minister David Jones said: “Starmer would sell out Brexit in a heartbeat if he thought it would save his own skin. As for the rest of this third-rate field, they all think the EU flag is the flag around which the sold-out Left struggling to cling to power will rally.”
Next month, Britain will mark the 10th anniversary of the Brexit referendum, in which Britain voted 52 percent to 48 percent to leave the EU. Pollsters YouGov found in April that 55% of Britons supported rejoining the bloc, while 33% were against it.
Sir Keir responded to this month’s disastrous elections to English councils and the Welsh and Scottish parliaments by promising that his Government would be “defined by rebuilding our relationships and placing Britain at the heart of Europe”.
David Campbell Bannerman, chairman of the Freedom Association, said all potential Labor leaders were “planning to betray Brexit with a desperate lifesaver for Labor MPs”.
The 2024 Labor Party manifesto promised “there will be no return to the single market, customs union or freedom of movement”.
Former Conservative leader Sir Iain Duncan Smith will tell the Brexiteeer meeting: “Labour has no electoral mandate to override the biggest vote this country has ever seen in voting for Brexit. We must defend the overwhelming democratic vote of the British people and fight to make sure Brexit is not betrayed. Labour’s internal leadership psychodrama must not hide the fact that they plan to take the UK back into the costly clutches of the EU. In short, Labor wants to ruin Brexit.”
Mr Singham, the trade expert, said: “It is strange that anger over the lack of hope and economic opportunity, which has led to the biggest Labor loss in the country in a generation, should lead to a Labor contest in which candidates are competing to get closer to the economic system that has left the EU and UK stagnant for two and a half decades.”
Andy Burnham 15 per cent of voters prefer to be Prime Minister (Image: Getty Images)
When pollster Techne asked voters which of the top eight candidates they would like to see become Prime Minister, more than half (54%) said none of the above or said they did not know.
Mr Burnham received the highest number of votes but only 15% support, ahead of former deputy prime minister Angela Rayner (7%), Energy Security Minister Ed Miliband (6%), Sir Keir (5%), Mr Streeting (5%), Home Secretary Shabana Mahmood and Armed Forces Minister Al Carns (both 3%) and Education Minister Bridget Phillipson (2%).
Conservative MP Jack Rankin said: “[It] If they’re all racing to Brussels, it doesn’t matter which clown drives the clown car.”
He said contestants would try to “outbid each other for applause at North London dinner parties”.
At a meeting of the Right-leaning Progress group of Labor supporters, Mr Streeting said: “[Leaving] The European Union was a disastrous mistake. In 2026, British people increasingly see that in a dangerous world, we must act together, both to rebuild our economy and trade and to improve our defenses against common threats from Russian aggression. [President Trump’s policy of] America first. The greatest economic opportunity we have is at our doorstep. “We need a new and special relationship with the EU because Britain’s future is in Europe and one day it will return to the European Union.”
Mr Streeting called for Britain to rejoin the EU at a time when Labor is far behind Reform England, the Brexit Party’s successor. Techne leads Nigel Farage’s party to 29%, ahead of the Conservatives and Labor (both 17%), the Greens (16%), the Liberal Democrats (12%) and Restore Britain (3%).
Lord Frost is one of Britain’s most high-profile Brexit advocates (Image: STEVE FINN PHOTOGRAPHY)
Former Chief Brexit Negotiator Lord Frost will defend Britain’s decision to leave the EU at the Liberty Foundation conference, saying: “There is no legitimate way to blame Brexit for the UK’s current economic malaise; it is simply the current Government trying to cover up its own mistakes. The Brexit deal is working, but we can still go much further to take advantage of the opportunities offered by giving up control of the EU. A truer Brexit is far better than a damaging and costly reset.”
Former Brexit minister Mr Jones said: “Britain has always been in Europe. But the majority of Britons have never believed that we should be governed politically from Europe. The answer to democratic disillusionment cannot be to shift more decisions away from voters. Most people now understand that the political class formally accepted Brexit but never truly agreed.”
Speakers at the Freedom Foundation event are expected to include Lord Frost, Sir Iain, Lord Hannan, the new Director General of the Institute of Economic Affairs, Blue Labor founder Lord Glasman, Mr Jones and European Research Group chairman Mark Francois.
COMMENT by former Brexit minister David Jones
Britain has always been part of Europe. Our history, culture and civilization are deeply intertwined with those of the continent. But most of us never believed that we should be governed from Europe.
The Brexit referendum in 2016 wasn’t just a trade or regulatory issue. This was a democratic assertion by 17.4 million people that Britain should be governed by institutions accountable directly to them.
Almost a decade later, many voters have concluded that although the political class formally accepted the Brexit vote, it never truly agreed.
This is why the Brexit debate is over. Indeed, the regions that showed the strongest support for a Reform UK in the election earlier this month were the regions that voted most to leave the European Union in 2016; particularly Wales and the North East of England.
The Conservatives signed Brexit into law but were never able to fully introduce it to the government. Many senior Conservatives remained wholeheartedly opposed to it. Sovereignty was formally restored but implemented with hesitation. The opportunities for smart regulatory differences, scientific innovation, and stronger border control have been only partially realised.
There have been some successes. Britain’s vaccine rollout during Covid has demonstrated the advantages of quick, independent decision-making outside the EU’s cumbersome purchasing structures. Our participation in the Trans-Pacific Partnership pointed to a more globally focused trade future.
But more is wanted. In the age of artificial intelligence and rapid technological change, the ability to adjust intelligently and adapt quickly is vital. Britain should of course cooperate internationally, but our regulatory environment should be shaped through our own democratic institutions and Common Law system, rather than being taken automatically from Brussels.
But Labor looks increasingly determined to reverse Brexit. Keir Starmer’s proposed “realignment” with Brussels through the European Partnership Bill will inevitably pull the UK back into regulatory alignment with the EU, with reduced parliamentary control.
The issue is not friendship with Europe; Britain, of course, needs to maintain close and constructive relations with our European neighbours. Is it right that the laws that govern the people of this country are made by institutions that are not directly responsible to them?
The desire of a free people for self-government should never be dismissed as ignorance or nostalgia. The answer to democratic disillusionment cannot be that more decisions are made away from the people.
This month’s elections showed that the 2016 referendum was not the end of the self-government debate. This was just the beginning of it.
