COMMENT: Labour and a covert plot to sneak Britain again into EU fold
Labour have a murky record of post-election bombshells which are not mentioned in any manifesto. They made ferocious efforts to keep secret the plan to raid private pensions, a devastating move which would have cost them many votes in 1997 had it become public.
So it is no surprise to find that Sir Keir Starmer‘s party is covertly working to reverse Brexit, as revealed in The Mail on Sunday today.
The disclosure comes thanks to Fiona Urquhart, chair of Labour International, the group tasked with rallying expatriate British citizens to vote for Labour in next month’s Election.
Perhaps thinking nobody in Britain would notice, she told a Majorca newspaper that Labour is now planning to re-establish free movement for Britons in the EU.
Free movement for UK citizens will, of course, not be granted by the EU unless it gets free movement for EU citizens in return. This would leave a giant hole in the fabric of Brexit.
So it is no surprise to find that Sir Keir Starmer ‘s party is covertly working to reverse Brexit , as revealed in The Mail on Sunday today
It is quite reasonable to suggest that this is evidence of plans for a stealthy, piecemeal unofficial return of Britain to the Brussels fold.
The revelation will damage Labour’s Election chances, which is why the plan has never been openly acknowledged. This is part of a pattern. Labour leader Sir Keir Starmer has a striking record of wild flip-flopping and zig-zagging on controversial policies, so making it impossible to pin his real opinions down.
He has publicly held directly opposite positions on major issues.
In his days as a loyal lieutenant of Jeremy Corbyn (whom he has since driven from the party), he was once all in favour of a second referendum on UK membership of the EU. But now he insists he is against it. He said he was for free movement in January 2020 but then pronounced himself against it in November 2022.
The late Tony Benn once said there were two kinds of politicians – the signposts, who held to their aims and never shifted, and the weathercocks who swung with the prevailing wind.
Former Labour Prime Minister Tony Blair
Sir Keir seems to be more of a whirligig, whizzing this way and that so bewilderingly that he is never in one place for long. In which case, can the electorate trust either his positive promises, that he will do some things, or his negative ones, that he will not do them?
The free movement revelation is a warning that voters still have very little idea of what they will actually get if they put Sir Keir into Downing Street.
A similar cloudy veil hangs over the vital issue of tax. Someone is going to have to meet the bill for what will undoubtedly be a higher-spending government than we have now.
Shadow Chancellor Rachel Reeves is not going to find the necessary money behind her sofa cushions, or from VAT on private schools.
It is time for some real old-fashioned rough and tumble in this campaign, in which these and other issues are publicly pursued until we get the truth.
