Labour continues to frustrate with its Brexit stance but there is hope - Yorkshire Post Letters

Talking down the prospects of Britain rejoining the European Union, as Business and Trade Secretary Peter Kyle recently did, feels like just the latest frustrating step in Labour’s post-Brexit dawdle (Kyle rules out debate on rejoining EU after Khan call, The Yorkshire Post, March 25).

Mr Kyle says no to “a protracted rejoining debate”. We don’t need one. Evidence has overtaken 2016 speculation, consequences for consumers and employers have replaced wishful thinking, and polls already show that 78 per cent of Labour's 2024 voters back rejoining.

Furthermore, the economic reality is biting. At her Autumn Budget last November, Chancellor Rachel Reeves was still relying on the Office for Budget Responsibility estimate of a 4 per cent hit to GDP from Brexit; more recently, she’s moved more into line with other trusted forecasters and acknowledged it’s tracking closer to double that at 8 per cent.

Despite Mr Kyle’s attempts to stick to a tired script, other members of the Government do seem to be slowly catching up with where the country - and especially Labour’s pro-European party base - has been for a long time. Ms Reeves, Health Secretary Wes Streeting, London Mayor Sadiq Khan, and even Sir Keir Starmer have all been making increasingly positive noises about our European future.

With the recent resignation of campaign strategist Morgan McSweeney amid the Mandelson-Epstein scandal, the rigid factional grip that forced Labour into the pre-election nonsense of “red-lines” and "make Brexit work" is perhaps finally loosening – with its chief architect gone.

So, are Mr Kyle’s comments an outlier, or a necessary reining in of public expectations of what the Starmer Government might achieve this side of the next general election?

Writing for the Institute for Government on March 25, senior fellow Jill Rutter noted that the Government’s warm "reset" rhetoric is drastically outpacing genuine achievements.

Peter Kyle speaks of "incredible opportunities" globally. Where? The further away the ‘opportunities’, the fewer the UK firms able to take advantage of them.

As the current Middle East crisis proves, relying on volatile global markets is a dangerous game. Trading closer to home is less risky, and more British businesses can participate. Post-Brexit trade deals agreed already are expected to have a negligible impact on our economic growth.

Furthermore, the millions of 16-to-26-year-olds who were too young to vote in 2016 are arguably better informed than the parents and grandparents who did. How much longer is Mr Kyle demanding they wait? Their parents and grandparents are better informed too, if they can remember what Leave promised and contrast that with what’s been delivered.

What “incredible opportunities” outside of Europe can Mr Kyle point to that might offset that? We don’t need “a very long, protracted debate”: Just ministers who recognise where the majority of us are already - and where the country’s interests lie.