Having let David Lammy, and to some extent Rachel Reeves trial a new Brexit line, Kier Starmer is planning a speech with a five point plan, which has been previewed (£) in the FT.
Trade is down the plughole (£), as is inward investment and our GDP is set to flatline for the next 18 months, we have labour shortages which are crippling various industries but most obviously agriculture and logistics and inflation is now running at 11%. The economy is not in a good state (£). All of this is caused by Brexit, When studying macroeconomics in the ’70s, we thought these dimensions of the economy were choices and a trade off, and while popular theory has changed, it’s quite an achievement for them all to be wrong and yet another not to want to fix it.
Meanwhile the FT article (£) states,
Starmer will insist that a Labour government would not seek to rejoin the EU’s single market or customs union or reintroduce freedom of movement — let alone seek to reverse the 2016 Leave vote.
I say “why not?”. All three of these measures are obvious and growingly popular solutions to the macroeconomic problems we face today.
The five point plan is important, but leaves glaring holes, does Labour propose to put import checks on products not included in the new agreement, will it try and ease the Labour shortage by allowing workers from Europe to return, why would the EU agree to freedom of movement for the professionally qualified only? Does any of this help jobs and the environment in the east coast and southern port cities?
Meanwhile, Redfield Wilton report that a majority of voters would vote to rejoin the EU although just as with the original referendum the terms of entry are not clear. Starmer and his kitchen cabinet are going to be left behind and are in danger of driving their own core votes into the hands of other parties. RW show that the majority of working age people (at least those under 55) support rejoining and a massive majority of those unable to have voted in the 2016 referendum.
Here’s the speech in his own words — 5/5/2022
Originally published at https://davelevy.info on July 4, 2022.
