So here we are. Labour’s mask has slipped.
Sir Keir Starmer has all but confirmed what many of us knew was coming: a slow, deliberate slide back into Brussels’ grip: the betrayal of Brexit in plain sight.
Reports this week suggest Labour is preparing to align Britain with the EU’s food and veterinary standards, while accepting the jurisdiction of the European Court of Justice over major parts of our economy.
This isn’t some harmless technocratic fix. It is the quiet reversal of Brexit: rules without representation, control handed back to Brussels, and democratic accountability not even a passing thought.
Let’s be fair. There were always respectable arguments on both sides of the Brexit debate. Stay in and follow the rules. Or leave and make your own.
But this? Leave — and voluntarily take the rules? That is strategic incoherence of the highest order.
And worse still, it’s not just our democratic sovereignty that’s at stake. It’s our entire trading future.
Labour’s Brexit betrayal is here – and it’s worse than you think – Robert Courts KC
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Don’t think that this is just some little sideshow that only affects one industry. It’s the thin end of the wedge. The hook that will be used through European Court decisions to bring wider areas of the economy back under Brussels’ purview and, once that is done, the Re-joiners will be back for more: “look, that wasn’t so hard, was it? Now let’s dynamically align with further areas…”
But worse. Labour’s EU reset now risks shutting Britain out of a trade deal with Washington. By signing up to Brussels’ food rules, we would be giving away our ability to set our rules. This makes it far more difficult to do free trade arrangements with countries that we don’t have them with, and particularly where the far greater prize lies, most notably America – our single greatest trading partner. Right now, this is the single biggest benefit of being out of the EU. In tariff terms, we have already seen the benefits.
This is the most basic point of all: you can’t align with Brussels and expect to deal freely with the rest of the world. You don’t have the power to do so.
Labour say this will “make trade easier.” That’s debateable – and there are other, better ways of doing that anyway. But even if that were right – at what cost? This is dynamic alignment: you agree that when they change their rules, you meekly change yours to match them, with no say or veto. It’s the EU’s way or no way.
The key to understanding this is to realise that the EU isn’t really a trading bloc. Not really. It’s a regulatory empire. And it doesn’t want mutual recognition — where sovereign nations agree to trust each other’s rules. It wants to export its regulatory orbit over as much of the World as possible. Indeed, the EU takes pride in the World adopting Brussels’ standards. One rulebook, written in Brussels, applied everywhere — with no British say, and no British veto.
So Labour’s plan locks us into a declining economic bloc, just as the rest of the world races ahead.
Trump is turning up tariffs. China is building rival systems. Supply chains are shifting fast. Britain should be nimble, sovereign and self-confident, not tied to the declining bloc that is yesterday’s EU. The whole point of Brexit was regulatory freedom — to become agile, competitive, globally engaged. Singapore-on-Thames, not Brussels-on-Sea. At precisely the moment that global trade tensions mean we need to be making full advantage of our regulatory and economic freedom, the Government is trying to give it away.
Labour claim this is “pragmatic”. It’s not. It’s just giving up.
And it’s not just sovereignty they’re trading away. It’s opportunity. This is a move that will stifle innovation. For example, it would also mean a ban on UK gene-editing agri-tech, which has massive potential to increase crop yields and reduce pesticide use.
Labour must back home-grown innovation and cut domestic red tape to make UK agriculture globally competitive.
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Do you want to help British farmers? Good. So do I, passionately. So for a start, scrap inheritance tax on family farms – the hated family farm tax. Then reverse the shattering blow that the closure of the sustainable farming initiative represents, after years of painstaking work to get it in the right place. Then back home-grown innovation. Cut domestic red tape to make UK agriculture globally competitive. Above all, understand the countryside, and those who work and live there.
But don’t tell farmers they’ll be better off ruled by Brussels bureaucrats who neither know nor care how British farming works. Why should they? It’s not their job to look after people who aren’t part of their bloc! It’s our own Government’s!
Make no mistake. The next time anyone goes and asks for a rule change in these sectors, the answer will be “I’m really sorry, we gave that power away. It is what it is.”Starmer’s idea of a “reset” isn’t compromise or co-operation – everyone’s in favour of that – it’s capitulation. We will be stuck with rules we can’t change. Courts we can’t legislate for. Deals we can’t strike.
That’s not Brexit. That’s not sovereignty. And it’s certainly not what 17.4 million people voted for.
Labour may think they can sneak this through while the public isn’t looking. But people understand what’s at stake. The right to make our own rules. To sign our own deals. To chart our own future. To hold our own elected Government to account.
Brexit meant taking back control of, above all, our laws. It was right then, and it is right now. Starmer’s plan gives it all away.
And once it’s all gone – good luck getting it back.
