Sir Keir Starmer is under pressure to adopt a more radical policy on Brexit ahead of the next election amid polling showing voters are increasingly disillusioned with the UK’s withdrawal from the EU.
A proposal to include negotiating a bespoke customs union with Brussels for the UK in Labour’s general election manifesto will be discussed at the party’s national policy forum later this month, i can reveal.
A number of Labour MPs believe there is a palpable shift in public opinion on Brexit due to comparatively worse inflation figures in the UK to Europe and ongoing issues with the trade deal with Brussels, and that space is now opening up for a “bolder” approach to Britain’s relationship with the EU.
Labour’s existing policy on Brexit, underlined by shadow Foreign Secretary, David Lammy, in a speech last month, is to pursue a more “pragmatic” and improved relationship with Brussels, and a pledge to improve the UK’s trade deal with the EU when it comes up for review in 2025.
Mr Lammy ruled out rejoining the EU, the single market or customs union, while Sir Keir has insisted arguments about rejoining the single market or customs union are “in the past”.
However, the Labour Movement for Europe has tabled amendments to the party’s national policy forum, which will later this month finalise an agenda that will form the basis for the next election manifesto.
The amendments do not guarantee inclusion in the manifesto, but MPs argue that the political landscape has shifted in the space of the last year as the UK economy has been battered by high inflation and difficulties with the trade deal.
While the amendments do not propose rejoining the EU, they call for Labour to push for better access to the single market, including joining the Pan-Euro-Mediterranean Convention, which offers preferential treatment to some Balkan and Middle Eastern states, and paving the way to negotiate a new bespoke customs union for the UK.
Labour MP Stella Creasy, chair of the Labour Movement for Europe, said: “The fog that was there for so long after we left the EU, when no-one wanted to talk about Brexit because people had voted for it, is starting to lift.
“The public have moved on from 2019 but politics has not. At the Labour Movement for Europe we have said we cannot avoid this issue, we have got to talk about it because too many people’s jobs are at stake.”
However, it is understood that Sir Keir and Mr Lammy’s position to rule out rejoining the EU, or to countenance a single market or customs union deal, has not changed and that the policy of pursuing an improved trade deal in 2025 remains firm.
Polling for i this week showed that more voters want to rejoin the EU than stay out, while 57 per cent blame Brexit for high UK inflation – which is around three percentage points higher than in the Eurozone.
One Labour MP said the party needed to be more open about the drawbacks of Brexit in the run-up to the election, adding: “The data speaks for itself and we should be up front about that.”
Another Labour MP said: “A year ago nobody wanted to talk about all of this, now they do. The question for us is how quickly can we stand up and explain what we mean by a closer relationship with Europe because that window of opportunity is pretty small.
“We need to be bolder about how we can work together. Everybody wants to get a better trading relationship than what we have now.”
Mr Lammy said last month that Labour’s Brexit policy was a “floor” not a “ceiling” to the party’s approach, which has fuelled hope among some Labour MPs that Sir Keir could go further on Brexit when he gets into government.
Around a third of the party’s new candidates for the next election, expected in 2024, have signed up to Labour Movement for Europe, insiders said.
But the issue of Brexit remains hugely divisive for some voters, and the party might risk missing out on regaining Red Wall seats lost to the Tories in 2019 if they are too pro-EU.
However, a Labour MP said: “The British public does not want to go back to the referendum. The last thing they want is to go back to the divisiveness of the referendum, of Leave and Remain. But likewise they don’t want to see their kids sitting in coaches at the border for several hours. They can see it [the current deal] is not working.”
Earlier this week, Tobias Ellwood, the Conservative chair of the Commons Defence Select Committee, told i that Brexit was not working and suggested the UK should look at rejoining the single market.
He said: “Nobody dares mention Brexit on the Labour or Conservative side or look at the numbers to see whether economically it would be wiser for us to be in or outside of the single market.
“Surely we should have that strength of character, the courage to look at the biggest generational decision which is now clearly not gone in the right direction. I didn’t know anybody who voted Remain or Brexit, who expected us to be where we are today, but we dare not go there.”
