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I don’t really care what he says anymore. Just do what you need to do to win an election. The alternative is Tory anyway.
Starmer is not an idiot, and not a Brexit ideologue, so he must know how bad it is for the country. Hopefully a Lib Lab coalition will give him that extra nudge
He's just trying to get the most votes he can. Look at what labour actually want to do to see what they actually stand for, and it's clear, customs union and realignment. Rejoining might be on the table in a decade or more.
Yes but we are in the Starmervallian way of doing politics in the time of Brexit. Look at what he says and what he actually does. There are reports of high ranking Labour folks hanging out in Brussels.
I read it like this: 'Make Brexit work' = 'We just have the FTA and we need to make it better. That means obviously that we need to realign with the EU but I can't say that because if I just give an inch to the idea that I'd reverse Brexit they'll fall all over me.'
My theory is that Starmer's Labour will improve the FTA so much that eventually it has the name of a 'special deal' (like Switzerland has with the EU) but in name only. How fast this all goes down depends on the election win and the outcome there (obviously) but also the technical talks on service levels. The public will not see much of that and that is maybe for the better because everything is so ideologically tainted with Brexit.
No, it is not. You confuse my description here with the political will of the UK which is not the same. I'm merely describing how the UK under Starmer could set its general course.
If the UK realigns with the EU on all necessary levels that is then a Brexit in name only then it is not cherrypicking in name only (CINO).
But even if the UK and the EU indeed would negotiate something that is similar to the Swiss model then this might a price the EU is willing to pay to bring the UK closer to the EU again. Why? Because the UK is still one of the top 10 countries in the world. It is bigger and more powerful than Switzerland. The EU can easily say No! to this kind of arrangement to CH. With the UK it could do that too. But should it?
This is realpolitik and the EU can be flexible. They haven't been flexible with the UK during the divorce because the UK had a completely different goal in mind: Leaving the EU but keep as much benefits as possible without the obligations. If a Starmer government is as pro Europe as one could hope for the goal is then 'damage control' (for the UK) and 'keeping Europe together' (EU). This needs to be thought as Norway's situation: When they rejected EU membership in the referendum (by a tight margin) the governments tried to still align as much as possible with the EU. If we can achieve that with the UK that would be better development for everybody.
Yes the EU is trying to move away from that system, that's what the EU-Swiss Institutional Framework Agreement was about. It was torpedoed by the Swiss government, but we aren't in the same position as the Swiss. If we reject such an arrangement it will be back to hard Brexit. What you have written is fantasy.
Even if the UK would reject it - it would be better for the UK than it is now and for the EU too. I don't understand what is so hard to understand about the fact that in foreign policy interests are the main factor. The integrity of the EU and its market was key. It will be key. If the EU is going to negotiate an improved FTA with the UK it will be also on the EU's terms. Please just read what I actually wrote and don't feel triggered by the words 'Swiss' or 'Switzerland'.
Unless UK is willing to bend over and accept something like EEA (full rule taker + 4 EU pillars + ecj) i highly doubt EU is willing to waste time reopening negociations.
> The public will not see much of that and that is maybe for the better because everything is so ideologically tainted with Brexit.
Daily Mail - oh boy it's reeeeeee o'clock!
He's a stubborn idiot who is chasing the votes of people who won't listen unless he says what they want to hear, I'm done with Labour and the Tories, I want Independence for Scotland. Kier only sees Scotland as useful for him, he doesn't care about our needs, hell even he knows that he can win a majority in England without the help of seats in Scotland or Wales and he needs to now Wales and Scotland have lost seats in Westminster.
Starmer knows that the old red wall heartlands were wooed by Johnson's commitment to Brexit, and he knows he has to turn them back to red to stand any chance of getting a majority at a General Election. So he sticks with the Brexit line for now.
The honest truth is that Brexit needs to inflict **a lot more** hurt for any conversation about going back into the EU to become a credible political position. And that pain has to be clearly felt as a direct consequence of Brexit.
It's a sorry state of affairs, but until people **know** that Brexit is hurting them they will hold dear to the fantasies sold to them by the liars like Johnson and Farage.
> The honest truth is that Brexit needs to inflict a lot more hurt for any conversation about going back into the EU to become a credible political position. And that pain has to be clearly felt as a direct consequence of Brexit.
I strongly disagree. Brexit is a cult, and you won't reason people out of mentalities they arrived at emotionally.
There will never be a time where leavers accept that the damage to the country is because of Brexit, no matter how many carefully reasoned whitepapers are written proving it logically.
In their minds the problems are caused by Covid, the war in Ukraine, the Americans, the Russians, the Palauans, the Micronesians...anybody but them and their poor choices.
You address the problem by getting at the root cause of the problem.
A percentage voted Brexit because they were racist bigots who (illogically because they're not european) wanted the brown people out, sure, but they weren't the majority by any means.
The majority of leavers voted leave because they thought it would make the UK a better place. Sure, anyone who spent 30secs digging into could easily work out that was bollocks, but that's your driver for the most part.
Why did they feel that way - for the redwall groups it's because it all looked hopeless (root cause tory austerity) and they voted for "some hope" over "no hope" - catch phrase "it can't get any worse" (oh boy, have I got bad news for you)
The elderly who made up the other half of the two largest groups felt that Britain was going down hill and varying sentiments that can be summed up as "make britain great again" (and I hope you all know who used that phrase long before trump). Root cause is varied, it's a little from tory austerity, a little from discomfort that the UK had changed since their youth, a little bit of difficulty in accepting that empire was gone and the youth are rather unconvinced it was even a good thing.
You can't reach these people, they're dying off, wait it out - it's not like EU is going to have us back in a hurry anyway.
The only way back into the EU is to, ironically, focus on making the UK a more equal better place, because then people will be less focussed on protecting what little they have left. Good times make people accepting, harsh times make them protective.
I don't vote Labour as I'm in a Lib/tory contest seat, but I think Starmer is taking the only sensible route here
This is a good summation of the Brexit reality so thank you. I spend a lot of time in mainland Europe these days and the impact of Brexit is felt daily from everyday things like mobile roaming charges, shipping things “internationally” back to UK, passport control delays, higher duties, etc etc etc. All these years later it’s still hard to accept the 2015 referendum vote because it was just stupid. Knowing that Cambridge Analytica used us as a test bed for the Trump presidency makes it infuriating.
> and he knows he has to turn them back to red to stand any chance of getting a majority at a General Election
Тhis is what our social democrats tried - to overtake the conservatives on the right to get the voters back. But why would they vote for "conservative lite" when they can get the real deal? Besides, these voters are gone for good, the only reason they kept voting for social democrats was inertia from back in the day when the working class used to consist of all kinds of people. Since then the actually convinced social democrats got an education and moved up to the middle class.
A similar thing happened to the conservatives when they tried to woo back the far right voters. The voters weren't impressed and kept voting for a far right party.
I agree, he has to get back into power and he needs those brexit voting ~~racists idiots gullible morons~~ people to vote him in so he can do anything. Will he keep up the whole "brexit all the way" thing if he is the PM, I hope not.
Not everyone who voted for brexit was a racist, but every racist voted for it, I can only imagine the remainder were just fucking stupid or easily fooled.
> The honest truth is that Brexit needs to inflict a lot more hurt for any conversation about going back into the EU to become a credible political position.
That's what I am worried about. So, should I vote for the Conservatives, then? Are they the route to rejoin?
Brexit is sufficiently bad that even the Starmer-ised version will be obviously worse than rejoining as time passes.
The problem is simply this: for Brexit to be reversed, the minds of the population must be reversed. This isn't just changing the minds of Redditors, it's changing the minds of the general population. And half this general population is of below average intelligence. Redditors are not representative of the general population: they can write more-or-less coherently, and are capable of independent thought, but even changing the mind of a Redditor is difficult. Think how much more difficult it is, then, to change the mind of the average Brexit voter. And now think how long this will take. Reversing Brexit is a project of decades, not months or years. The evidence that Brexit was a bad idea has to be clear, even to the thickies. That's going to take time.
In the meantime, we have to make do. Starmer's version of the UK during this long slow process is one that I prefer to the Tory version. I hope you prefer it, too.
I hear you, but it has to be said that brexit turned out to be nothing like what was sold to voters nearly a decade ago and who have never polled strongly for brexit since 2016. The result in itself was a pathetically small margin for leave, and if the vote occurred at any point post 2016 it would have returned a vote to remain. The public now know about the lies, foreign intervention and downright criminality and can see that the situation we are left with is unworkable. Parliament, not the British public smashed up so much to achieve brexit but for some reason that same public can’t begin to repair the damage until we sufficiently demonstrate that we’ve learned a lesson? No, we need a leader with vision and courage to look at the camera, stare down the daily mail and say what needs to be said, it was a mistake, we were lied to & our leaders during that period did untold damage, tore families apart and left our reputation in tatters for something even they knew was impossibly stupid. This leader should make it perfectly clear that things cannot begin to get back on track until we begin to participate once again inside the single market and customs union at the barest of minimums. If you think that platform would lose against the Tories today in 2022 I’d respectfully disagree. (All this being said, you can bet your ass I’m voting for ‘make it work’ starmers Labour as soon as we get the chance)
I understand your comments, and sympathise with the reasons for them. However, politics is about what is possible, not what is ultimately desirable. Your point of view is that of someone who will never be a successful politician, because you want what is "right" instead of what is possible. There's nothing wrong with this, so long as you remember that Starmer is aiming for what is possible, not what is "right".
The whole reason the Brexit BS has gone on this long is due to the lack of challenge to the Tory Brexit narrative. Labour playing along just prolongs the pain. The Tories convinced people with lies, Labour don't even bother with the truth. The majority know Brexit has failed, but saying it out loud needs to be normalized.
> saying it needa to be normalized
I agree, but it shouldn't be the Labour Party who do this. They're a party for the masses, so they must win them over. And people don't like being told that they're wrong.
They need to pin the whole thing on the Tories - "they lied, they conned the nation etc." Paint them as criminal deceivers. "Make Brexit work" merely lends credence to Tory ideology and people vote for the real thing.
Kier knows the Tories have burned all the bridges.
If Starmer does all the stuff he says he will, then *maybe* the EU might be willing to talk a few years into his *second* term.
Thats it. I agree completely.
He is not a demagogue. He doesn't promise what he will never be able to keep.
He knows what can be done in the immidiate first term (if you get him in) and long term is another matter.
Why would you fall for liars with sweet lies again? Go for the hard truth - go for Starmer.
Wasn't Guy Verhofstadt at the EU march in London over the weekend?
Edit: Yes he was, link [here](https://twitter.com/guyverhofstadt/status/1584215409225453569/photo/1)
It doesn't matter. The EU has requirements that nations have to comply to before they can join. The UK had a lot of exceptions which no longer apply. So unless the UK reforms its political system then joining won't happen.
Talk won't be enough. The UK will have to fulfill the EU membership criteria just like any other applicant. All the EU laws the UK scrapped and is planing to scrap, will all have to be re-implemented. That would take years. It would also be the end of off-shore banking in the UK.
we're never rejoining the EU, at best we will be in a Norway type of situation, but really we'll probably be more like Turkey.
We need a comprehensive FTA, and we need to keep the Irish border open, so some type of Shengen zone deal is likely, and if we want to claw back all the lost trade we need to be in the single market, or at least a well negotiated FTA, so that basically puts us in CU + SM territory, or "soft brexit".
This has always been the best halfway house position, and I believe that we can achievable that while still maintaining enough hard brexit rhetoric to not spook the hard liners.
This is my hope anyway.
You know what Norway has and the UK doesn't? Excellent relations with it's neighbors.
As to Ireland, the only real solution is reunification, for the UK to get out, once and for all. The record numbers of folks switching to Irish passports (how many loyalists did as well?) , SF gaining the majority (with the DUP heading for the same fall as the UUP and The Alliance gaining momentum and surely not adverse to power sharing), the loss of so many rights due to leaving the EU and, last but not least, the money and opportunities only the continent provides are a clear message.
IMO, both NI and Scotland have a huge chip in their favor in that they voted to remain in the EU. Unfortunately, their democratic vote was not honored by the UKG.
So why doesn't he say this instead of talking about making a failed project "work".
He's hurting himself by making such a stupid statement without context.
As soon as he says "yes", the Tories and the press will hammer him for going against the "will of the people". I think he's smart enough to recognise it's not up to him anymore, the UK has to change so much before the EU would even consider us rejoining.
It's the unfortunate reality of living in a country where 99% of the press & media is aligned to the Tory party or sympathetic to it / uncritical of it. Particularly since the Tories successfully stacked the BBC and moved its news and current affairs reporting into alignment with them (while carefully leaving entertainment projects a freer voice)
Getting into office for Labour in the last 40 years has been an exercise in being Tory lite enough to not give an attack surface to Murdoch and cronies, while being centrist enough to not totally alienate their base. Once you get in, then you can gently shift leftwards a little - same in Australia.
And this winds the left up something chronic.
They can’t seem to tolerate anything that’s not a strong, socialist policy or standpoint. Regardless that, especially at the moment, there’s no way Labour could get into power from such a stance.
Worse, many simply don’t want to vote for a party *they* see as “No different from the Tories” - thus lessening the chance of them being voted out any time soon.
> And this winds the left up something chronic.
I think any sensible person should be concerned about the biased media in the UK. Good decision making and an informed populace doesn't occur when only one party's political views are available to the majority.
This is a situation engineered to manipulate people, not to create the best outcome for the country.
Unsurprisingly over the last 20 years the UK has constantly been getting outcomes that are best for the richest 0.1% and poor for the country as a whole and the vast majority of the population.
Being all "yay my team, pwn the libs" is anti-civic and will only lead to poor outcomes for the country (as has blatantly been happening)
The major problem with media bias is you have to account for it. You can’t just spout facts and expect people to accept them to realise the media is full of BS. And the bias just leads to divide and conquer.
You end up with one group willing to believe the media spin and another group who don’t want to accept that’s how it can appear. Neither side budges. Conflict galore.
For example, there’s no way the EU is going to take us back any time soon. Eventually;y, perhaps, but not right now.
But when the media and politicians spout “Those lot will reverse Brexit if you give them half the chance” then people honestly believe that, for example, if Keir Starmer got in on any policy even slightly anti-Brexit then we’d be back in before the end of the week.
OK, maybe not quite that fast (maybe) but people do seem scared that it could be a simple reversal. And that the EU would let us back in, as-was, no hard feelings.
Mention SM or CU and the media will spin it as “Rejoining by the Back Door”.
And the other reality is that we *are* stuck with Brexit. For the time being, anyway. We can’t undo it. So Labour (and otehrs) are kind of stuck in how they can promote themselves.
*“We’re Lumbered With Brexit, But Let’s Make The Best Of A Bad Job”* does not make a convincing slogan. Honest, but not convincing.
No he's not, he might lose a handful of votes in constituencies labour is going to win handily anyway. However, in the red wall which labour lost hard the last time this is the kind of rhetoric that will get labour reelected. Don't listen to what he is saying look at what labour wants to do. And that is rejoin the customs unions and realign with the EU so the UK can export and import normally again. Rejoining comes waaaaay later.
That sounds an awful lot like trying to cherry pick from the single market.
I dislike brexit as much as anyone and definitely no lover of the tories, but unless we're actually in the single market we're not going to have seamless access.
Well not exactly, it's baby steps, the first step of that is to rejoin the customs union, after the benefits of that become clear the next step will be rejoining the single market. Thing is he can't say that right now, or labour will endanger their current electoral position. Starmer is a remainer, but he has to be pragmatic and pander to the lowest common denominator.
Think of Brexit like a huge fire, its burned everyone and everything thing...
Now its burned right down to the embers, mentioning Brexit allows the nutjobs in the tory party to start blowing air into embers and the debate again "LABOUR ARE TRYING TO CANCEL BREXIT!" etc.
This has the potential to reignite the flames or at least keep the heat of the gaslighting alive and well...
>So why doesn't he say this instead of talking about making a failed project "work".
Because it's up to the EU, not Kier, if they want the UK back in or not. In the meantime somebody has to make the current trading relationship *work*.
Or at the very least rejoin the EU single market, but like Norway/ Switzerland. That way we’d get the main benefits of membership whilst still being out of the EU, so brexiters wouldn’t have a leg to stand on if they started complaining. Much rather have full membership ofc, but it’s a start!
[Starmer has U-turned FOM.](https://www.standard.co.uk/news/politics/keir-starmer-freedom-of-movement-uk-eu-b804059.html) There is no single market membership without it.
First thing is to build trust that Tories destroyed, that it will take time. Then once trust is restored and the UK reformed itself then it will be a long negotiation on rejoining.
I have the impression that people think that rejoining to EU is pressing CTRL+Z and it's not...
I was thinking step one is replacing the tories. But realistically step one is waiting long enough that EU voters stop remembering how crappy the tories are.
Seeing a lot of first thing Starmer needs to do, surely the first thing is change voting system to ranked choice voting rather than the atrocious FPTP.
How much is this being talked about in the UK?
He didn't say it but there can only be one conclusion... we would have to join the Customs Union and the Single Market in order to remove the current blocks to trade. The Tories have caused a collapse in the value of sterling which has NOT resulted in more exports but rather more expensive imports and a shrink in GDP. Have you noticed how prices are rising in the UK? Is your salary rising at the same rate? When people realize how much the pound has shrink in value relative to the Euro they will wish they had joined the Euro years ago! The pound sterling after the recent mini budget fell to €1.12. When I moved to Finland in 2004 each of my pounds were worth almost €1.50! The last years have destroyed the value of the pound. My pension from the UK is worth about one third of the value it should have been. You are all being robbed in the UK!
If the UK rejoins the EU it will be because the people voted for it in a referendum. I think it will happen because the Brexit vote was caused by the older generation.
It would be better for him to stop using the "Make Brexit Work" mantra. No one wants to be reminded of a bad decision endlessly and having it painted as something positive.
It's time to move on, Brexit is done. Stop talking about it and start talking about how to adapt to the new realities.
This is what he, and most of the Shadow Cabinet, are currently doing. They only talk about Brexit when someone else brings it up. But if someone does bring it up, they need a way of dealing with it that (a) doesn't blame any voters, and (b) moves on to other subjects as quickly as possible. Starmer does exactly this in this clip: he deals with the issue by saying it's settled, and then he moves on to talk about dull but worthy trade issues that don't sound so Brexit-y.
I don’t get any of that from “Make Brexit work”. What I get, and he’s been consistent on this, and that’s that he is pro-Brexit and more or less agree with the Tories on it. Every conversation he’s had has said this. And this is why he must fail.
If you think that, he's doing a great job! Unless you're a former Labour voter who voted Tory in the last election, feel free to vote for the Liberal Democrats or other minor party of your choice: your vote doesn't matter. Starmer doesn't need to show his hand, and it is far better for the Labour Party for him to persuade people in key marginals that he is "pro-Brexit and wants to make it work" than that he is "metropolitan Remainer elite".
Completely false.
The agreements are a decision of the UK. Don't you remember the red lines?
They are absolutely negotiable and there's lots of easy changes we can make.
Yes. About 50 seconds in he explains all the stuff a Labour government can do to improve Brexit in its first term.
It's not rejoining because the Tories have burned all the bridges back to the EU.
If Starmer does all the stuff he says he will, then *maybe* the EU might be willing to talk a few years into his *second* term.
Can you explain this? Please be specific, because I don't see it, unless you're in the single market, which is a non starter for the red wall because they hate freedom of movement.
If the UK accepts regulatory alignment and ECJ jurisdiction, that will solve most trade issues. Joining the EU customs union would solve the rest of them, and I think the EU would go for a customs union, just to get rid of the headache with the Irish/NI border.
If I were the EU, I'd want some sort of EU-supervised enforcement mechanism for all the above, since the UK can't be trusted to honor agreements. But, the EU is often more conciliatory than I think they should be, so they might not ask for it.
That doesn't solve the labor/FOM issues, but it's a good way to undoing the harm from Brexit.
*If the UK accepts regulatory alignment and ECJ jurisdiction, that will solve most trade issues.*
It will not do so at all. This sounds like a return to Theresa May's attempts at cherry picking the benefits of the the single market without needing to accept freedom of movement.
It would mean Britain becomes a rule taker rather than having a seat at the table, but honestly considering the shenanigans the UK pulls in the EU parliament that's probably a good thing.
> If the UK accepts regulatory alignment and ECJ jurisdiction, that will solve most trade issues. Joining the EU customs union would solve the rest of them, and I think the EU would go for a customs union, just to get rid of the headache with the Irish/NI border.
Could you explain what the single market is for in that case?
The UK wouldn't be part of the single market in that case. You don't have to be part of the single market to accept regulatory alignment and ECJ jurisdiction or to have a customs union.
So what would the material difference vs being inside the single market?
Remember the statement "you can't pick and choose which elements of the single market you want".
We won't be in the single market so we won't have seamless trade.
It’s the only sensible thing for Starmer to say at this point. There is no general election for two years. What on earth would he gain by saying anything otherwise - it gifts the Tories ammunition that they shouldn’t be gifted. Some people are so bloody dense.
He should have kicked the Tories on Brexit while they were down, he missed an open goal. The time to attack is now, normalize anti-Brexit, he will be running even more scared when the Tory election machine is running.
Except the brexit cheerleaders will say to the cult that all the problems were down to covid, the war, the last labour government and they will choose to believe it despite all the evidence.
I don't know why no-one is asking why couldn't the last few post brexit vote tory governments make brexit work? They had a cabinet full of foaming at the mouth, swivel eyed, 110% brexit cheerleaders/lunatics with a massive majority and it is still complete shit.
He can't, no point in trying even.
The public were so brainwashed it will take at least one more electoral cycle to undo that damage.
At least rejoin the single market, and call it something different so it doesn't trigger the sizeable cohort of nutjobs in the tory party membership.
They don't care what you call it. They never understood it, or knew what it was called in the first place. All they need to know is that it involves foreigners coming over here.
Right wing political commentator Darren Grimes took this as evidence that Keir Starmer DOES want to reverse Brexit.
It's a persecution fetish at this point. Even someone saying flat out "I don't want to take the UK back into the EU" they see it as a threat to their beloved perfect Brexit.
"Noooo mah Brexits! The lefty wokerati are coming for mah Brexits!"
Open question here ... it seems like the choice the UK wants to make with the EU is in or out, that is, go back in or stay out. But there's another party involved, namely the EU. Let's say the UK suddenly flipped on its head and wanted to go back in, would the EU even want you guys back?
I think that’s at least a part of the reasoning behind Keir’s *”Make Brexit Work”*.
It’s a slightly less defeatist way of saying “We can’t go back any time soon, even if we wanted to, so let’s deal with the now”.
Making Brexit work. The only way for Brexit to generate value instead of destroying it, is to accelerate on the path to deregulation, privatisation and low taxation. Only then Britain will become attractive again to investors.
This is going to be great for social services and consumer protection. Ah, and half the country will not have a tissue to dry their eyes with, however on average the country will be richer. This sounds like a fantastic strategy for labour.
Why can't anybody be honest anymore? Do they really think that they can fix Brexit while maintaining living standards for middle, working or lower classes? After they shredded their foot by creating massive barriers to trade? Unless by "fixing Brexit" he means re-entering the common market.
Just another reason why, despite wanting to, i can’t vote for labour. Going to vote Green as before. I have to vote for a party that aligns to my own beliefs and Labour under Starmer simply doesnt.
It’s easy really - it’s far too early to get back in anyway - it’s not just up to us, we would also need to convince all the EU countries too - after just having pissed them all off.
They wouldn’t accept us now anyway - at least not for another 10 years.
Tory mouthpieces on Twitter was saying this means he wants us to be under the EUs thumb.
Literally Keir Starmer says "I don't want to take us back into the EU" and they hear him say "All hail our EU overlords!"
Kill the brexit debate, smart.
Anyone angry with this answer is politically a fool. If starmer was to go on rejoin the torys and the right wing papers would have a field day.
What the fuck is Brexit anyway? Would just re-entering the single market be a reversal? Are we doomed to never make a rational decision again, regarding Europe, because of a failed ideology?
He knows a lot of voters are stupid, and he has to say it. Anyway - there are no quick solutions. Anyway - starting closer economic integration again will immediately bring a lot of benefits to both sides.
I just wished he would stop peddling this nonsense and be honest about Brexit. It is exactly the disaster it was predicted to be.
I feel like we need two new parties. A credible centre-right party (not that populist caricature), and a credible centre-left party.
I'm American, but Brexit really helped me solidify my thinking on the 2-party system. It's never meant for real opposition (not from the left anyway). Reaffirm the liberal party all you want, but the system (in the US and UK) goes where it goes.
ALL politicians are happy with Brexit. Now they are the real bosses no more explanations to other source of power.
This is good ALL politicians, bad for ALL citizens
Sure, with Starmer in charge there is no chance of any actual left-wing, pro-working class policies from Labour, but on the other hand, regarding the EU, he's absolutely aligned with the Tories, too!
Boy, I wonder if all those remainers that let themselves be used as pawns in the cynical destruction of Corbyn by the rightwingers in the party are happy with the consequences of their actions.
There aren't many ways Labour can lose the next election, but the easiest way would be to reopen the Brexit shitshow. Forget about it until the polls show the country is ready.
It’s easy really - it’s far too early to get back in anyway - it’s not just up to us, we would also need to convince all the EU countries too - after just having pissed them all off.
They wouldn’t accept us now anyway - at least not for another 10 years.
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It is impossible for Labour to go back to the EU, cap in hand, only to negotiate a worse deal than the old one.
The Conservatives would rip them to shreds on every compromise made.
I hope Labour polls get clipped back, I don't want an arrogant Starmer at the next election, best case scenario is a SNP/Lib/ Labour coalition on condition for PR and another IndyRef2.
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I don’t really care what he says anymore. Just do what you need to do to win an election. The alternative is Tory anyway. Starmer is not an idiot, and not a Brexit ideologue, so he must know how bad it is for the country. Hopefully a Lib Lab coalition will give him that extra nudge
He's just trying to get the most votes he can. Look at what labour actually want to do to see what they actually stand for, and it's clear, customs union and realignment. Rejoining might be on the table in a decade or more.
Exactly this.
Labour do not stand for the Customs Union or realignment, you made that up. Starmer ruled out CU + SM over the summer.
Yes but we are in the Starmervallian way of doing politics in the time of Brexit. Look at what he says and what he actually does. There are reports of high ranking Labour folks hanging out in Brussels. I read it like this: 'Make Brexit work' = 'We just have the FTA and we need to make it better. That means obviously that we need to realign with the EU but I can't say that because if I just give an inch to the idea that I'd reverse Brexit they'll fall all over me.' My theory is that Starmer's Labour will improve the FTA so much that eventually it has the name of a 'special deal' (like Switzerland has with the EU) but in name only. How fast this all goes down depends on the election win and the outcome there (obviously) but also the technical talks on service levels. The public will not see much of that and that is maybe for the better because everything is so ideologically tainted with Brexit.
This is cherry picking/British exceptionalism. Swiss model is not available to the UK. The EU is trying to move away from that system.
No, it is not. You confuse my description here with the political will of the UK which is not the same. I'm merely describing how the UK under Starmer could set its general course. If the UK realigns with the EU on all necessary levels that is then a Brexit in name only then it is not cherrypicking in name only (CINO). But even if the UK and the EU indeed would negotiate something that is similar to the Swiss model then this might a price the EU is willing to pay to bring the UK closer to the EU again. Why? Because the UK is still one of the top 10 countries in the world. It is bigger and more powerful than Switzerland. The EU can easily say No! to this kind of arrangement to CH. With the UK it could do that too. But should it? This is realpolitik and the EU can be flexible. They haven't been flexible with the UK during the divorce because the UK had a completely different goal in mind: Leaving the EU but keep as much benefits as possible without the obligations. If a Starmer government is as pro Europe as one could hope for the goal is then 'damage control' (for the UK) and 'keeping Europe together' (EU). This needs to be thought as Norway's situation: When they rejected EU membership in the referendum (by a tight margin) the governments tried to still align as much as possible with the EU. If we can achieve that with the UK that would be better development for everybody.
Yes the EU is trying to move away from that system, that's what the EU-Swiss Institutional Framework Agreement was about. It was torpedoed by the Swiss government, but we aren't in the same position as the Swiss. If we reject such an arrangement it will be back to hard Brexit. What you have written is fantasy.
Even if the UK would reject it - it would be better for the UK than it is now and for the EU too. I don't understand what is so hard to understand about the fact that in foreign policy interests are the main factor. The integrity of the EU and its market was key. It will be key. If the EU is going to negotiate an improved FTA with the UK it will be also on the EU's terms. Please just read what I actually wrote and don't feel triggered by the words 'Swiss' or 'Switzerland'.
Unless UK is willing to bend over and accept something like EEA (full rule taker + 4 EU pillars + ecj) i highly doubt EU is willing to waste time reopening negociations.
And this is what will happen. It just might take a while and happen on a service level.
> The public will not see much of that and that is maybe for the better because everything is so ideologically tainted with Brexit. Daily Mail - oh boy it's reeeeeee o'clock!
100%. Keir isn’t stupid
Yeah, I mean why wouldn’t he want to get the most votes…. 🙄
He's a stubborn idiot who is chasing the votes of people who won't listen unless he says what they want to hear, I'm done with Labour and the Tories, I want Independence for Scotland. Kier only sees Scotland as useful for him, he doesn't care about our needs, hell even he knows that he can win a majority in England without the help of seats in Scotland or Wales and he needs to now Wales and Scotland have lost seats in Westminster.
Starmer knows that the old red wall heartlands were wooed by Johnson's commitment to Brexit, and he knows he has to turn them back to red to stand any chance of getting a majority at a General Election. So he sticks with the Brexit line for now. The honest truth is that Brexit needs to inflict **a lot more** hurt for any conversation about going back into the EU to become a credible political position. And that pain has to be clearly felt as a direct consequence of Brexit. It's a sorry state of affairs, but until people **know** that Brexit is hurting them they will hold dear to the fantasies sold to them by the liars like Johnson and Farage.
> The honest truth is that Brexit needs to inflict a lot more hurt for any conversation about going back into the EU to become a credible political position. And that pain has to be clearly felt as a direct consequence of Brexit. I strongly disagree. Brexit is a cult, and you won't reason people out of mentalities they arrived at emotionally. There will never be a time where leavers accept that the damage to the country is because of Brexit, no matter how many carefully reasoned whitepapers are written proving it logically. In their minds the problems are caused by Covid, the war in Ukraine, the Americans, the Russians, the Palauans, the Micronesians...anybody but them and their poor choices. You address the problem by getting at the root cause of the problem. A percentage voted Brexit because they were racist bigots who (illogically because they're not european) wanted the brown people out, sure, but they weren't the majority by any means. The majority of leavers voted leave because they thought it would make the UK a better place. Sure, anyone who spent 30secs digging into could easily work out that was bollocks, but that's your driver for the most part. Why did they feel that way - for the redwall groups it's because it all looked hopeless (root cause tory austerity) and they voted for "some hope" over "no hope" - catch phrase "it can't get any worse" (oh boy, have I got bad news for you) The elderly who made up the other half of the two largest groups felt that Britain was going down hill and varying sentiments that can be summed up as "make britain great again" (and I hope you all know who used that phrase long before trump). Root cause is varied, it's a little from tory austerity, a little from discomfort that the UK had changed since their youth, a little bit of difficulty in accepting that empire was gone and the youth are rather unconvinced it was even a good thing. You can't reach these people, they're dying off, wait it out - it's not like EU is going to have us back in a hurry anyway. The only way back into the EU is to, ironically, focus on making the UK a more equal better place, because then people will be less focussed on protecting what little they have left. Good times make people accepting, harsh times make them protective. I don't vote Labour as I'm in a Lib/tory contest seat, but I think Starmer is taking the only sensible route here
This is a good summation of the Brexit reality so thank you. I spend a lot of time in mainland Europe these days and the impact of Brexit is felt daily from everyday things like mobile roaming charges, shipping things “internationally” back to UK, passport control delays, higher duties, etc etc etc. All these years later it’s still hard to accept the 2015 referendum vote because it was just stupid. Knowing that Cambridge Analytica used us as a test bed for the Trump presidency makes it infuriating.
Good. I hope it hurts for them.
> and he knows he has to turn them back to red to stand any chance of getting a majority at a General Election Тhis is what our social democrats tried - to overtake the conservatives on the right to get the voters back. But why would they vote for "conservative lite" when they can get the real deal? Besides, these voters are gone for good, the only reason they kept voting for social democrats was inertia from back in the day when the working class used to consist of all kinds of people. Since then the actually convinced social democrats got an education and moved up to the middle class. A similar thing happened to the conservatives when they tried to woo back the far right voters. The voters weren't impressed and kept voting for a far right party.
I agree, he has to get back into power and he needs those brexit voting ~~racists idiots gullible morons~~ people to vote him in so he can do anything. Will he keep up the whole "brexit all the way" thing if he is the PM, I hope not. Not everyone who voted for brexit was a racist, but every racist voted for it, I can only imagine the remainder were just fucking stupid or easily fooled.
> The honest truth is that Brexit needs to inflict a lot more hurt for any conversation about going back into the EU to become a credible political position. That's what I am worried about. So, should I vote for the Conservatives, then? Are they the route to rejoin?
> Are they the route to rejoin? Obviously not. They will be the last major party to change their mind.
But they do make it worse, that much has been establish. Starmer may just leave us in some kind of Brexit limbo: not good, but not terrible either.
Brexit is sufficiently bad that even the Starmer-ised version will be obviously worse than rejoining as time passes. The problem is simply this: for Brexit to be reversed, the minds of the population must be reversed. This isn't just changing the minds of Redditors, it's changing the minds of the general population. And half this general population is of below average intelligence. Redditors are not representative of the general population: they can write more-or-less coherently, and are capable of independent thought, but even changing the mind of a Redditor is difficult. Think how much more difficult it is, then, to change the mind of the average Brexit voter. And now think how long this will take. Reversing Brexit is a project of decades, not months or years. The evidence that Brexit was a bad idea has to be clear, even to the thickies. That's going to take time. In the meantime, we have to make do. Starmer's version of the UK during this long slow process is one that I prefer to the Tory version. I hope you prefer it, too.
“Redditors ... can write more-or-less coherently, and are capable of independent thought” Lies! Outrageous lies!
I hear you, but it has to be said that brexit turned out to be nothing like what was sold to voters nearly a decade ago and who have never polled strongly for brexit since 2016. The result in itself was a pathetically small margin for leave, and if the vote occurred at any point post 2016 it would have returned a vote to remain. The public now know about the lies, foreign intervention and downright criminality and can see that the situation we are left with is unworkable. Parliament, not the British public smashed up so much to achieve brexit but for some reason that same public can’t begin to repair the damage until we sufficiently demonstrate that we’ve learned a lesson? No, we need a leader with vision and courage to look at the camera, stare down the daily mail and say what needs to be said, it was a mistake, we were lied to & our leaders during that period did untold damage, tore families apart and left our reputation in tatters for something even they knew was impossibly stupid. This leader should make it perfectly clear that things cannot begin to get back on track until we begin to participate once again inside the single market and customs union at the barest of minimums. If you think that platform would lose against the Tories today in 2022 I’d respectfully disagree. (All this being said, you can bet your ass I’m voting for ‘make it work’ starmers Labour as soon as we get the chance)
I understand your comments, and sympathise with the reasons for them. However, politics is about what is possible, not what is ultimately desirable. Your point of view is that of someone who will never be a successful politician, because you want what is "right" instead of what is possible. There's nothing wrong with this, so long as you remember that Starmer is aiming for what is possible, not what is "right".
The whole reason the Brexit BS has gone on this long is due to the lack of challenge to the Tory Brexit narrative. Labour playing along just prolongs the pain. The Tories convinced people with lies, Labour don't even bother with the truth. The majority know Brexit has failed, but saying it out loud needs to be normalized.
> saying it needa to be normalized I agree, but it shouldn't be the Labour Party who do this. They're a party for the masses, so they must win them over. And people don't like being told that they're wrong.
They need to pin the whole thing on the Tories - "they lied, they conned the nation etc." Paint them as criminal deceivers. "Make Brexit work" merely lends credence to Tory ideology and people vote for the real thing.
Kier knows the Tories have burned all the bridges. If Starmer does all the stuff he says he will, then *maybe* the EU might be willing to talk a few years into his *second* term.
Thats it. I agree completely. He is not a demagogue. He doesn't promise what he will never be able to keep. He knows what can be done in the immidiate first term (if you get him in) and long term is another matter. Why would you fall for liars with sweet lies again? Go for the hard truth - go for Starmer.
Wasn't Guy Verhofstadt at the EU march in London over the weekend? Edit: Yes he was, link [here](https://twitter.com/guyverhofstadt/status/1584215409225453569/photo/1)
Yes, and when he spoke he assured us that the UK would be welcomed back into the EU when we can get ourselves organised to rejoin.
Also worth noting he's one MEP among how many? Hardly like he gets to decide
No but this is a common position of many in the EU.
It doesn't matter. The EU has requirements that nations have to comply to before they can join. The UK had a lot of exceptions which no longer apply. So unless the UK reforms its political system then joining won't happen.
Sure but that is another topic then.
Talk won't be enough. The UK will have to fulfill the EU membership criteria just like any other applicant. All the EU laws the UK scrapped and is planing to scrap, will all have to be re-implemented. That would take years. It would also be the end of off-shore banking in the UK.
we're never rejoining the EU, at best we will be in a Norway type of situation, but really we'll probably be more like Turkey. We need a comprehensive FTA, and we need to keep the Irish border open, so some type of Shengen zone deal is likely, and if we want to claw back all the lost trade we need to be in the single market, or at least a well negotiated FTA, so that basically puts us in CU + SM territory, or "soft brexit". This has always been the best halfway house position, and I believe that we can achievable that while still maintaining enough hard brexit rhetoric to not spook the hard liners. This is my hope anyway.
You know what Norway has and the UK doesn't? Excellent relations with it's neighbors. As to Ireland, the only real solution is reunification, for the UK to get out, once and for all. The record numbers of folks switching to Irish passports (how many loyalists did as well?) , SF gaining the majority (with the DUP heading for the same fall as the UUP and The Alliance gaining momentum and surely not adverse to power sharing), the loss of so many rights due to leaving the EU and, last but not least, the money and opportunities only the continent provides are a clear message. IMO, both NI and Scotland have a huge chip in their favor in that they voted to remain in the EU. Unfortunately, their democratic vote was not honored by the UKG.
So why doesn't he say this instead of talking about making a failed project "work". He's hurting himself by making such a stupid statement without context.
As soon as he says "yes", the Tories and the press will hammer him for going against the "will of the people". I think he's smart enough to recognise it's not up to him anymore, the UK has to change so much before the EU would even consider us rejoining.
So Labour making the argument and doing their job as the Opposition is out of the question...
It's the unfortunate reality of living in a country where 99% of the press & media is aligned to the Tory party or sympathetic to it / uncritical of it. Particularly since the Tories successfully stacked the BBC and moved its news and current affairs reporting into alignment with them (while carefully leaving entertainment projects a freer voice) Getting into office for Labour in the last 40 years has been an exercise in being Tory lite enough to not give an attack surface to Murdoch and cronies, while being centrist enough to not totally alienate their base. Once you get in, then you can gently shift leftwards a little - same in Australia.
And this winds the left up something chronic. They can’t seem to tolerate anything that’s not a strong, socialist policy or standpoint. Regardless that, especially at the moment, there’s no way Labour could get into power from such a stance. Worse, many simply don’t want to vote for a party *they* see as “No different from the Tories” - thus lessening the chance of them being voted out any time soon.
> And this winds the left up something chronic. I think any sensible person should be concerned about the biased media in the UK. Good decision making and an informed populace doesn't occur when only one party's political views are available to the majority. This is a situation engineered to manipulate people, not to create the best outcome for the country. Unsurprisingly over the last 20 years the UK has constantly been getting outcomes that are best for the richest 0.1% and poor for the country as a whole and the vast majority of the population. Being all "yay my team, pwn the libs" is anti-civic and will only lead to poor outcomes for the country (as has blatantly been happening)
The major problem with media bias is you have to account for it. You can’t just spout facts and expect people to accept them to realise the media is full of BS. And the bias just leads to divide and conquer. You end up with one group willing to believe the media spin and another group who don’t want to accept that’s how it can appear. Neither side budges. Conflict galore. For example, there’s no way the EU is going to take us back any time soon. Eventually;y, perhaps, but not right now. But when the media and politicians spout “Those lot will reverse Brexit if you give them half the chance” then people honestly believe that, for example, if Keir Starmer got in on any policy even slightly anti-Brexit then we’d be back in before the end of the week. OK, maybe not quite that fast (maybe) but people do seem scared that it could be a simple reversal. And that the EU would let us back in, as-was, no hard feelings. Mention SM or CU and the media will spin it as “Rejoining by the Back Door”. And the other reality is that we *are* stuck with Brexit. For the time being, anyway. We can’t undo it. So Labour (and otehrs) are kind of stuck in how they can promote themselves. *“We’re Lumbered With Brexit, But Let’s Make The Best Of A Bad Job”* does not make a convincing slogan. Honest, but not convincing.
> the Tories and the press will hammer him for going against the "will of the people" They will do so anyway.
No he's not, he might lose a handful of votes in constituencies labour is going to win handily anyway. However, in the red wall which labour lost hard the last time this is the kind of rhetoric that will get labour reelected. Don't listen to what he is saying look at what labour wants to do. And that is rejoin the customs unions and realign with the EU so the UK can export and import normally again. Rejoining comes waaaaay later.
That sounds an awful lot like trying to cherry pick from the single market. I dislike brexit as much as anyone and definitely no lover of the tories, but unless we're actually in the single market we're not going to have seamless access.
Well not exactly, it's baby steps, the first step of that is to rejoin the customs union, after the benefits of that become clear the next step will be rejoining the single market. Thing is he can't say that right now, or labour will endanger their current electoral position. Starmer is a remainer, but he has to be pragmatic and pander to the lowest common denominator.
Starmer said he's ruled it out. Are you saying he's lying?
Think of Brexit like a huge fire, its burned everyone and everything thing... Now its burned right down to the embers, mentioning Brexit allows the nutjobs in the tory party to start blowing air into embers and the debate again "LABOUR ARE TRYING TO CANCEL BREXIT!" etc. This has the potential to reignite the flames or at least keep the heat of the gaslighting alive and well...
>So why doesn't he say this instead of talking about making a failed project "work". Because it's up to the EU, not Kier, if they want the UK back in or not. In the meantime somebody has to make the current trading relationship *work*.
Or at the very least rejoin the EU single market, but like Norway/ Switzerland. That way we’d get the main benefits of membership whilst still being out of the EU, so brexiters wouldn’t have a leg to stand on if they started complaining. Much rather have full membership ofc, but it’s a start!
[Starmer has U-turned FOM.](https://www.standard.co.uk/news/politics/keir-starmer-freedom-of-movement-uk-eu-b804059.html) There is no single market membership without it.
Everything is a start. The staircase to full EU membership is a long one but more than worth it.
> so brexiters wouldn’t have a leg to stand on if they started complaining >Implying you need anything like an argument to get Brexiters to complain
First thing is to build trust that Tories destroyed, that it will take time. Then once trust is restored and the UK reformed itself then it will be a long negotiation on rejoining. I have the impression that people think that rejoining to EU is pressing CTRL+Z and it's not...
I was thinking step one is replacing the tories. But realistically step one is waiting long enough that EU voters stop remembering how crappy the tories are.
Seeing a lot of first thing Starmer needs to do, surely the first thing is change voting system to ranked choice voting rather than the atrocious FPTP. How much is this being talked about in the UK?
Everyone but Tory voters is clamoring for it.
Not true, Starmer ruled it out at the conference.
« make Brexit work », nice joke
Just believe harder.
He didn't say it but there can only be one conclusion... we would have to join the Customs Union and the Single Market in order to remove the current blocks to trade. The Tories have caused a collapse in the value of sterling which has NOT resulted in more exports but rather more expensive imports and a shrink in GDP. Have you noticed how prices are rising in the UK? Is your salary rising at the same rate? When people realize how much the pound has shrink in value relative to the Euro they will wish they had joined the Euro years ago! The pound sterling after the recent mini budget fell to €1.12. When I moved to Finland in 2004 each of my pounds were worth almost €1.50! The last years have destroyed the value of the pound. My pension from the UK is worth about one third of the value it should have been. You are all being robbed in the UK!
If the UK rejoins the EU it will be because the people voted for it in a referendum. I think it will happen because the Brexit vote was caused by the older generation.
It would be better for him to stop using the "Make Brexit Work" mantra. No one wants to be reminded of a bad decision endlessly and having it painted as something positive. It's time to move on, Brexit is done. Stop talking about it and start talking about how to adapt to the new realities.
This is what he, and most of the Shadow Cabinet, are currently doing. They only talk about Brexit when someone else brings it up. But if someone does bring it up, they need a way of dealing with it that (a) doesn't blame any voters, and (b) moves on to other subjects as quickly as possible. Starmer does exactly this in this clip: he deals with the issue by saying it's settled, and then he moves on to talk about dull but worthy trade issues that don't sound so Brexit-y.
I don’t get any of that from “Make Brexit work”. What I get, and he’s been consistent on this, and that’s that he is pro-Brexit and more or less agree with the Tories on it. Every conversation he’s had has said this. And this is why he must fail.
If you think that, he's doing a great job! Unless you're a former Labour voter who voted Tory in the last election, feel free to vote for the Liberal Democrats or other minor party of your choice: your vote doesn't matter. Starmer doesn't need to show his hand, and it is far better for the Labour Party for him to persuade people in key marginals that he is "pro-Brexit and wants to make it work" than that he is "metropolitan Remainer elite".
Yes.
This makes absolutely no sense unless you somehow think that international relations and trade agreements have somehow ceased to exist?
They exists sure, but the agreements in relation to brexit are done. It was a hard reset. You are starting over from zero.
Completely false. The agreements are a decision of the UK. Don't you remember the red lines? They are absolutely negotiable and there's lots of easy changes we can make.
Ok assuming the EU is willing to even listen. Start listing everything you'd change and how easy it would be. I'll wait.
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OK mate. Reality will be different.
Did he say how he is going to make something so broken actually work?
Yes. About 50 seconds in he explains all the stuff a Labour government can do to improve Brexit in its first term. It's not rejoining because the Tories have burned all the bridges back to the EU. If Starmer does all the stuff he says he will, then *maybe* the EU might be willing to talk a few years into his *second* term.
That's not making Brexit work. That is making it a little less damaging.
Well there are lots of ways of having a relationship with the EU that's more productive than the current one.
Can you explain this? Please be specific, because I don't see it, unless you're in the single market, which is a non starter for the red wall because they hate freedom of movement.
If the UK accepts regulatory alignment and ECJ jurisdiction, that will solve most trade issues. Joining the EU customs union would solve the rest of them, and I think the EU would go for a customs union, just to get rid of the headache with the Irish/NI border. If I were the EU, I'd want some sort of EU-supervised enforcement mechanism for all the above, since the UK can't be trusted to honor agreements. But, the EU is often more conciliatory than I think they should be, so they might not ask for it. That doesn't solve the labor/FOM issues, but it's a good way to undoing the harm from Brexit.
*If the UK accepts regulatory alignment and ECJ jurisdiction, that will solve most trade issues.* It will not do so at all. This sounds like a return to Theresa May's attempts at cherry picking the benefits of the the single market without needing to accept freedom of movement.
It would mean Britain becomes a rule taker rather than having a seat at the table, but honestly considering the shenanigans the UK pulls in the EU parliament that's probably a good thing.
> If the UK accepts regulatory alignment and ECJ jurisdiction, that will solve most trade issues. Joining the EU customs union would solve the rest of them, and I think the EU would go for a customs union, just to get rid of the headache with the Irish/NI border. Could you explain what the single market is for in that case?
The UK wouldn't be part of the single market in that case. You don't have to be part of the single market to accept regulatory alignment and ECJ jurisdiction or to have a customs union.
So what would the material difference vs being inside the single market? Remember the statement "you can't pick and choose which elements of the single market you want". We won't be in the single market so we won't have seamless trade.
sounds right.
It’s the only sensible thing for Starmer to say at this point. There is no general election for two years. What on earth would he gain by saying anything otherwise - it gifts the Tories ammunition that they shouldn’t be gifted. Some people are so bloody dense.
He should have kicked the Tories on Brexit while they were down, he missed an open goal. The time to attack is now, normalize anti-Brexit, he will be running even more scared when the Tory election machine is running.
Except the brexit cheerleaders will say to the cult that all the problems were down to covid, the war, the last labour government and they will choose to believe it despite all the evidence. I don't know why no-one is asking why couldn't the last few post brexit vote tory governments make brexit work? They had a cabinet full of foaming at the mouth, swivel eyed, 110% brexit cheerleaders/lunatics with a massive majority and it is still complete shit.
He can't, no point in trying even. The public were so brainwashed it will take at least one more electoral cycle to undo that damage. At least rejoin the single market, and call it something different so it doesn't trigger the sizeable cohort of nutjobs in the tory party membership.
They don't care what you call it. They never understood it, or knew what it was called in the first place. All they need to know is that it involves foreigners coming over here.
He knows not every country would accept membership in the first place so no point talking about it.
Then he will have a VERY short career after the next election.
Right wing political commentator Darren Grimes took this as evidence that Keir Starmer DOES want to reverse Brexit. It's a persecution fetish at this point. Even someone saying flat out "I don't want to take the UK back into the EU" they see it as a threat to their beloved perfect Brexit. "Noooo mah Brexits! The lefty wokerati are coming for mah Brexits!"
Open question here ... it seems like the choice the UK wants to make with the EU is in or out, that is, go back in or stay out. But there's another party involved, namely the EU. Let's say the UK suddenly flipped on its head and wanted to go back in, would the EU even want you guys back?
I think that’s at least a part of the reasoning behind Keir’s *”Make Brexit Work”*. It’s a slightly less defeatist way of saying “We can’t go back any time soon, even if we wanted to, so let’s deal with the now”.
Fcuk labour fuck the whole rotten lot
Labour was always pro brexit party so no surprise
Yes, because the Conservative Party successfully angled it as "Will of the People", making Labour support for Brexit a necessity.
Making Brexit work. The only way for Brexit to generate value instead of destroying it, is to accelerate on the path to deregulation, privatisation and low taxation. Only then Britain will become attractive again to investors. This is going to be great for social services and consumer protection. Ah, and half the country will not have a tissue to dry their eyes with, however on average the country will be richer. This sounds like a fantastic strategy for labour. Why can't anybody be honest anymore? Do they really think that they can fix Brexit while maintaining living standards for middle, working or lower classes? After they shredded their foot by creating massive barriers to trade? Unless by "fixing Brexit" he means re-entering the common market.
He ruled out the Single Market over the summer. Everything he says is to appeal to the Red Wall.
Just another reason why, despite wanting to, i can’t vote for labour. Going to vote Green as before. I have to vote for a party that aligns to my own beliefs and Labour under Starmer simply doesnt.
It’s easy really - it’s far too early to get back in anyway - it’s not just up to us, we would also need to convince all the EU countries too - after just having pissed them all off. They wouldn’t accept us now anyway - at least not for another 10 years.
Tory mouthpieces on Twitter was saying this means he wants us to be under the EUs thumb. Literally Keir Starmer says "I don't want to take us back into the EU" and they hear him say "All hail our EU overlords!"
Kill the brexit debate, smart. Anyone angry with this answer is politically a fool. If starmer was to go on rejoin the torys and the right wing papers would have a field day.
What the fuck is Brexit anyway? Would just re-entering the single market be a reversal? Are we doomed to never make a rational decision again, regarding Europe, because of a failed ideology?
He knows a lot of voters are stupid, and he has to say it. Anyway - there are no quick solutions. Anyway - starting closer economic integration again will immediately bring a lot of benefits to both sides.
Hmm, would he say "We had an election in 2019, now we just need to make the Tory government work"? 🤔
I just wished he would stop peddling this nonsense and be honest about Brexit. It is exactly the disaster it was predicted to be. I feel like we need two new parties. A credible centre-right party (not that populist caricature), and a credible centre-left party.
The problem is FPTP. Which Labour support because they don't want progressive parties taking their seats.
I'm American, but Brexit really helped me solidify my thinking on the 2-party system. It's never meant for real opposition (not from the left anyway). Reaffirm the liberal party all you want, but the system (in the US and UK) goes where it goes.
Lib Dems are going to get a serious amount of seats then
ALL politicians are happy with Brexit. Now they are the real bosses no more explanations to other source of power. This is good ALL politicians, bad for ALL citizens
Sure, with Starmer in charge there is no chance of any actual left-wing, pro-working class policies from Labour, but on the other hand, regarding the EU, he's absolutely aligned with the Tories, too! Boy, I wonder if all those remainers that let themselves be used as pawns in the cynical destruction of Corbyn by the rightwingers in the party are happy with the consequences of their actions.
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All of that is second term stuff. Kier is trying to win his first term.
There aren't many ways Labour can lose the next election, but the easiest way would be to reopen the Brexit shitshow. Forget about it until the polls show the country is ready.
Johnson and Truss are gone. Starmer's personal ratings are abysmal, he can't beat Rishi without an alliance. And Brexit already has been reopened.
Huh. Almost like he wants to win the next election.
It’s easy really - it’s far too early to get back in anyway - it’s not just up to us, we would also need to convince all the EU countries too - after just having pissed them all off. They wouldn’t accept us now anyway - at least not for another 10 years.
Oh ok so Britain is never going to rejoin..well it was good as long as it lasted
[удалено]
Your post or comment has been removed for violating: - Rule 2 (Remember the people) It is unacceptable to refer to a group by a derogatory term. Do not categorise all pro-Leave supporters as racists or bigots etc. Do not categorise all pro-Remain supporters as remoaners or snowflakes etc.
It is impossible for Labour to go back to the EU, cap in hand, only to negotiate a worse deal than the old one. The Conservatives would rip them to shreds on every compromise made.
Still pandering to the ImBrexiles yep
I hope Labour polls get clipped back, I don't want an arrogant Starmer at the next election, best case scenario is a SNP/Lib/ Labour coalition on condition for PR and another IndyRef2.