No to Starmer’s Brexit reverse

The government plans to introduce new legislation which will hasten Starmer’s campaign to reverse Brexit. The whole process surrounding the “reset” with the EU deliberately obscures the extent to which the Labour Party seeks to erode Britain’s position.

Describing this as “the dynamic realignment bill” is designed to make workers switch off and ignore the dangers. Instead it should be a signal to fight for our sovereignty.

Take charge

Parliament can’t be relied on to resist this shift. The only option for the working class is to take charge of this situation. Unless this government is ousted before the bill is put before parliament, or forced to withdraw it, the future task of reasserting sovereignty will be far more difficult.

The bill could be introduced as early as this spring. The intention is to make a law to support the various deals that the government has discussed with the EU. These including the Erasmus student exchange scheme, youth mobility, common food and veterinary standards and linking with the EU’s emissions trading scheme.

‘A significant loss of sovereignty.’

After Brexit, parliament legislated to ensure that all new rules enforced in Britain were approved by the UK parliament. This bill would remove that safeguard; it would be a significant loss of sovereignty. Crucially it would also mean that new EU rules will automatically enter into force in Britain.

Starmer says that Britain should move closer to the EU “if it is in our national interest”. The proposed legislation shows either great naivety or great dishonesty. Certainly his dealings so far with the EU don’t show him capable of negotiating in Britian’s interests.

EU demands

The removal of parliamentary agreement will encourage the EU to come up with ever more onerous demands. It did so repeatedly during the exit negotiations. And it has already said that it would expect compensation if such a law was ever reversed! In other words the EU wishes to dictate the policy of any future British government.

The long term cost of rejoining Erasmus will be over £8 billion. That was on terms detrimental to Britian as more EU students would come here than the reverse and ignored the achievements of the less costly post-Brexit Turing scheme introduced in 2021.

Dictating

The alignment of farming and food standards is not simple, nor is it likely to be beneficial to British agriculture. It also risks biosecurity while imposing costs on British farmers. And the EU will dictate those standards too, returning the position to what it was before Brexit.

The government has already signalled that the new law would be used to enact a new agreement with the EU on the emissions trading scheme used to regulate the quantity of carbon released into the atmosphere by companies.

Threat

As the EU’s current carbon credit scheme costs more than the UK, it could mean higher costs for British manufacturing and thus a further attack on our ability to produce goods in Britain. That’s yet another threat to our sovereignty and independence.

‘Labour politicians plotting to replace Starmer are no different.’

Those Labour politicians plotting to replace Starmer as party leader are no different. If anything, they have even more ambitious plans to rejoin the EU. This is from a government who went to the electorate in 2024 on a platform of saying they had no such plans.

The Labour Party’s 2024 general election manifesto said, “With Labour, Britain will stay outside of the EU” and not return to the single market. It went on to say that it would “tear down” unnecessary trade barriers. The reality is that the EU is dictating the terms of the reset at every stage to a party willing to ignore the Leave vote.