J.A. KING’S letter illustrates what a pickle Sir Keir Starmer and his party have got themselves into on Brexit and Europe (‘Vote for Labour is a vote for EU’, The Yorkshire Post, June 25).

Mr King is wrong – though I wish he wasn’t – to suggest Labour plans to “rejoin the EU”. Shadow Foreign Secretary David Lammy made clear last week it won’t even be seeking the kind of non-member, Norway-style single market half-way house agreement that would start to tackle problems Boris Johnson’s exit agreement created...such as many billions of pounds of trade losses and extra bureaucracy for firms.

Labour’s plans for better EU relations are far too modest. I don’t know if Mr King knows this, but Boris Johnson will.

It’s not enough to stop him claiming repeatedly in the House of Commons it’s Labour’s policy to rejoin. Oh, how I wish here – just for once – what the Prime Minister is saying was true.

The public mood on Brexit is shifting as the damage caused by Mr Johnson’s EU deal becomes impossible to ignore.

But Labour hasn’t even been chasing this change in opinion, never mind leading it.

Unless there’s a radical gear change in the next few months, Labour risks going into the General Election with a wishy-washy policy that won’t

enthuse its largely progressive, well-informed pro-European base of supporters who know what it’s proposing – but make it easy for Tory rivals to continue lying to those who don’t.

David Lammy had a good initial line of attack: “Boris Johnson’s Conservatives are stuck in a fever dream of 2016, picking petty fights with our closest allies instead of moving on and negotiating solutions.”

But Labour’s official stance then meant a poor, wimpish follow through.

What Labour offers will undoubtedly be an improvement on the Tories’ current catastrophe, but they are a hard sell and not as positive a step forward for our country as it could be. It’s not too late for the Labour

Keir Starmer in a pickle but it's not too late for Labour - Yorkshire Post Letters