Sir Keir Starmer has repeatedly refused to rule out the UK rejoining the EU in his lifetime. The Prime Minister, who backed Remain during the 2016 Brexit campaign, ruled out the move in the run-up to last year’s general election.
But in an interview with The Observer, he failed to make the same pledge again when asked five times. He told the newspaper: “We’ve stopped having the discussion about whether we should go backwards and pick over Brexit.”
It comes after Deputy Prime Minister David Lammy earlier this week refused seven times to rule out reversing Brexit.
The arch-Remainer told The News Agents podcast: “It’s self-evident that leaving the EU badly damaged our economy, took us out of an important marketplace and created serious friction.
“Untruths were being peddled by those that thought exiting the EU would be a good thing.”
He also suggested that rejoining the customs union would boost sluggish economic growth.
He said: “That is not currently our policy. That’s not currently where we are.
“But you can see countries like Turkey with a customs union seemingly benefiting and seeing growth in their economy, and again, that’s self-evident.”
But Cabinet minister Pat McFadden shut down suggestions about the UK rejoining the customs union during an interview with Sky News’s Trevor Phillips on Sunday.
He said: “Well, we’ve just conducted three trade deals this year, and that’s a pretty big difficulty if you’re going to join a customs union.”
Asked whether the Deputy Prime Minister was wrong in his remarks, the Work and Pensions Secretary said: “I think the prime minister has made that pretty clear in terms of the grand architecture of EU. By grand architecture, I mean the single market and the customs union.”