Keir Starmer is buying into Boris Johnson’s big economic lie over Brexit

Trade down 14 per cent, endless queues at Dover, exports strangled by red tape, rising costs to the consumer. You can’t make this work, and deep down the Labour leader should know that, argues James Moore

Freight and holiday traffic queues at the Port of Dover in Kent (PA Wire)

Wait, cautious Keir is talking Brexit? Is this a) because someone popped something in the Labour leader’s Monday morning coffee? Political courage pills? Or is it b) down to the fact that the economic damage is becoming so screamingly obvious that ignoring this Godzilla-level trade wrecker, and letting the Tories off the hook for it, makes him look like a bit of a berk?

Give yourself a gold star if you answered b).

Here’s the problem: Starmer’s Brexit speech still makes him look like a bit of a berk – unless, that is, the Labour leader is just being terribly dishonest. Not Boris Johnson-level dishonest, it’s true. But dishonest all the same – even if he believes it. The hard fact is that you can’t make Brexit work better when the whole project was built on a foundation of dishonesty and economy myth-making – something that is becoming clearer by the day.

The latest evidence of the brutal cost of Johnson’s signature project, arguably the only thing he’s done of note since he landed in No 10, emerged last week courtesy of Eurostat. It showed that UK exports to the EU had slumped by 14 per cent in 2021 compared to 2020.

This shouldn’t have surprised anyone. Small firms in particular have found themselves strangled by the sort of red tape that the Tories promised Brexit would tear up. That red tape is always going to be there. It is always going to make exporting a nightmare of form-filling and box-ticking, far more than when we were part of the single market.

In the pan-European export cup handicap horse race, Britain’s businesses are carrying top weight; perhaps a stone – or a bit over 6kg, depending on your preference – more than any other runner. For businesses that are fighting for their lives – as many are post-Covid – that’s too much to handle. So they are sticking to their home market and hoping that will do the trick for them. Which it won’t, because everyone is looking to do the same thing, with the economy heading down the toilet.

The import side of the equation is no less problematic, particularly for UK consumers. The queues at Dover, the lorry parks in Kent, are all part of established fact. Not forgetting sterling’s weakness, which makes imports more expensive (and fuels inflation).

There are many reasons behind the shortage of truck drivers. But one of them – at least insofar as the long-distance variety is concerned – is drivers’ reluctance to end up stuck in the mud, sometimes for hours (or days) on end. Needless to say, the costs have to be passed on, further fuelling price rises.

The governor of the Bank of England, Andrew Bailey, didn’t want to upset his political masters by mentioning Brexit last week, when he said that the UK would endure high inflation for longer than its peers. But it doesn’t take a high-level economics qualification to see it lurking. It is always the spectre at the feast, whose name we must not mention for fear of frightening the children.

Which takes us back to Starmer and his five-point plan to make Brexit “work better”.

The Labour leader says he wants to support industries by working towards mutual recognition of professional qualifications; to strengthen security cooperation with Europe; to seek new security arrangements for Britain’s borders; and to share data and intelligence with our allies. Oh, and to do a better job with the vexatious Northern Ireland protocol. Is that a unicorn I see dancing?

All of this is terribly nice. It would clearly benefit Britain were it to enjoy a friendly and constructive dialogue with its European partners, in contrast with Johnson’s childish sniping across the Channel and fomenting of petty disputes in pursuit of cheap headlines whenever he finds himself in a spot of bother.

But Starmer’s five-point plan isn’t going to fix the underlying problem. Nor would a 10-point plan, or a 20-point plan, or a 42-point plan. It will do little to improve the lot of UK exporters. It won’t help with the queues faced by lorry drivers. As for tempting back some of the investment Britain has lost through all this – are you kidding me? The brutal truth is that what Starmer is trying to do here is to polish up a turd.

A sensible sort from the Labour movement pointed out, when I made that suggestion, that I should give him time. It’s about the best he can do given the electoral coalition he needs to put together. This could be considered a holding position – and so maybe I was being too hard on him.

Maybe. Maybe. But let’s look at Starmer’s words: “Let me be very clear: with Labour, Britain will not go back into the EU. We will not be joining the single market. We will not be joining a customs union.

“The reason I say this is simple. Nothing about revisiting those rows will help stimulate growth, or bring down food prices, or help British business thrive in the modern world.

“It would simply be a recipe for more division, it would distract us from taking on the challenges facing people, and it would ensure Britain remained stuck for another decade.”

I could be wrong, but that doesn’t look much like a holding position. This could have been done better, tactically and strategically. How about addressing workers’ rights post-Brexit? Jumping in to defend them against the depredations of Tory Brexiteers, who have the whip hand over policy, and want to cut them into pieces.

Starmer could have hit out at P&O Britain. The people who backed Brexit didn’t vote for that! It would have been a worthwhile line of attack. A way of addressing Brexit without angering a good chunk of the Remain-leaning voters he also needs to turn out for him (and who may now be wondering if he’s worth it).

As it is, we have some limp pledges that will keep the British economy in the slow lane and make it much harder for Labour to push through its agenda.

Promising to “make Brexit work better” simply sees Starmer buying into Johnson’s big lie. Haven’t we had enough of those?

He might have been better off saying nothing at all.