I do get a little fed up with those attacking Sir Kier Starmer for his policy over Brexit and the EU. What choice does he have?
The country is fed up to the back teeth with Brexit, but the idea that the UK can get back into the EU or the Single Market anytime soon is for the birds.
EFTA won’t have us, the EU won’t have us and the EU is very, very reluctant to negotiate one-off deals with major economies. Switzerland has turned out to be a pain in the neck, how much worse would be endless dealings with the UK?
Then you come down to cherry picking things you really want, free movement or membership of REACH or more help for touring musicians. But the EU hates cherry picking it undermines its raison d’etre, you are either in the club or you are outside the club,
So what is left, well the deal can be reviewed in 2025, the EU almost certainly doesn’t want to do that either but the UK might be able to squeeze a few things out of them.
That is about it. So it makes sense for Sir Kier to say we have to make the best of the deal we have. There is very little else he can do and as we have seen every time he even hints of actually talking nicely to Brussels the right wing press screams “betrayal”.
But once he has his feet under the desk at No. 10 he can actually start a mature dialogue with the EU, stop sabre rattling, lying and threatening and try to restore some of the UK’s reputation for pragmatism and honesty.
That will help, a bit.
Until then what else can he do?
Economics, trade and Brexit, not necessarily in that order but the dog always comes first.
The answer may possibly be found perhaps in parts of David Lammy's speech to Parliament in January 2019.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1XEj64IFzQ8
What irritates many people, I suspect, is the constant refrain that "Brexit isn't working", when MPs know it was never intended to work as sold. As if it was all done in good faith, but has failed because of incompetence. When they know that every claim and accusation made by the Leave campaign was a lie. And UK negotiation with the other EU member states was conducted (by the UK) as deceitfully as the Leave campaign. As David Lammy put it unequivocally, Brexit is a con, a swindle... and "silence is betrayal".
It's the refusal to publicly acknowledge this, I think, that irritates people so much. Acknowledging the fact of the scam would at least give the public the sense of an alternative, even if the options over the next decade are few. A refusal to do this because of a fear of the news media, and that some voters won't like it, is hardly the definition of leadership, and even less a sign of a healthy, functioning democracy.
Keir Starmer could do a bit better.
Frankly it would be good if a political leader at least owned up to what Parliament has done. It was after all Parliament who voted to activate Article 50, not the minority 37% who voted for Brexit in what was in reality an opinion poll.