Britain should stick to the EU single market, keep contributing to Brussels coffers, and have ‘easy’ migration rules, the shadow Brexit Secretary said today.
Sir Keir Starmer gave the most detailed account yet of Labour’s stance as he hinted that the party could back a second referendum on relations with the EU.
But his comments endorsing a Norway-style tie-in are likely to fuel the burgeoning divisions within the party about Brexit, which has seen Jeremy Corbyn, frontbenchers and rank-and-file MPs take starkly different positions.
Appearing on the BBC’s Andrew Marr show this morning, Sir Keir hailed Theresa May’s divorce deal that was finally sealed with the EU on Friday.
But shadow Brexit Secretary Keir Starmer gloated that the UK’s path was set after Mrs May committed to ‘full alignment’ with the bloc in key trade areas in order to protect the soft border in Ireland
Mr Starmer set out his vision for a Norway-style deal with the EU that would mean accepting contributing to budgets and ‘easy’ migration rules
Theresa May (pictured heading for church in her Maidenhead constituency with husband Philip today) is under pressure over the deal she struck with the EU
He claimed the UK’s path was already set after Mrs May committed to UK-wide ‘full alignment’ with the bloc in key trade areas in order to protect the soft Irish border and assuage DUP concerns about the integrity of the union.
Asked if the UK now had to stay ‘very, very close’ to the single market and the customs union.
‘Yes, and I think that’s the right thing and I think we should hold her to that because that goes to the heart of the question what sort of Britain do we want to be?’ he said.
‘Do we see Europe as our major trading partner in the future or do we want to rip ourselves apart from that?’
Speaking about regulations and standards, Sir Keir added that if the UK wanted the benefits of the single market and the customs union ‘you’ve got to stay on the same level playing field’.
He said: ‘We are very comfortable with staying on a level playing field.’
He said Labour wanted a partnership that ‘retains the benefits of the single market and the customs union’ and wanted a new treaty.
‘We would start with viable options, staying in a customs union and a single market variant which means full participation in the single market,’ he said.
‘You can’t sweep the customs union and the single market off the table on the one hand and also say you don’t want a hard border in Northern Ireland…You can’t have no hard border if you don’t have alignment.’
Sir Keir also made clear that Labour was ready to keep paying money into EU coffers in return for market access.
The government has said that apart from the divorce bill the UK will no longer be paying ‘large sums’ to the bloc every year.
Sir Keir said: ‘Norway pays money in, they do it actually on a voluntary basis… there may have to be payments, that’s to be negotiated.’
Pushed on the party’s vow that it will not accept freedom of movement after Brexit, Sir Keir suggested its term would be similar to the current arrangements.
‘Well that would have to be negotiated but the end of free movement doesn’t mean no movement, of course we would want people to come from the EU to work here, we would want people who are here to go and work in the EU, the basis of that would have to be negotiated,’ he said.
Asked if that would mean easy movement if not free, he replied: ‘Yes, of course.’
Asked if Labour would call for a second referendum, he replied: ‘We haven’t called for a second referendum, things are moving so fast it’s hard to know what’s going to come next but we are not calling for it.’
Pressed twice more on the issue, he added: ‘Things are moving so fast it’s hard to know what’s going to come next, but we are not calling for a second referendum.’
Jeremy Corbyn has been struggling to keep a lid on deep divisions within Labour over Brexit
On the BBC’s Andrew Marr show today, Brexit Secretary David Davis insisted the package dramatically signed off in Brussels did not mean we would accept the EU’s rules wholesale