BRITAIN, Keir Starmer assured us during the election campaign, will not be rejoining the EU.
He was at it again on The Sun’s Never Mind The Ballots this week, telling us that on no account will his “reset” of relations with the EU involve us rejoining the single market or the customs union, nor accepting a return to free movement.
All he wants is a few tweaks here and there to improve our relations with the EU, and to smooth out our trading arrangements.
But in that case, why does Starmer seem to be entertaining the possibility that Britain could agree to be bound once again by the judgments of the European Court of Justice?
The ECJ is an EU institution, staffed by EU judges whose wages are paid by EU funds and charged with the task of settling disputes between EU member states.
It is totally unsuited to acting as arbiter between the EU and external countries for a very good reason: It doesn’t occupy a neutral position, and thus could be expected always to come down on the EU’s side.
It is rather as if the ref in a local derby between Blackburn Rovers and Bolton Wanderers was allowed to take to the field in Blackburn colours.
That is why the Brexit withdrawal agreement, negotiated by Boris Johnson when he was Prime Minister, refused to allow a role for the ECJ.
It would have reduced Britain to becoming a vassal state of the EU, not in theory part of the bloc but nevertheless bound by its rules forever after.
Throughout the Brexit process Michel Barnier and his negotiating team tried every wheeze they could to try to tie Britain down.
They wanted the EU’s claws to be planted in Britain’s back in perpetuity.
They simply wouldn’t accept that Britain had voted to leave.
When Johnson refused a role for the ECJ, the EU weaponised the border between Northern Ireland and the Irish Republic.
Disgracefully, the peace process was used as a pretext for ensuring that at least one corner of the United Kingdom would remain bound by the rules of the single market.
And on that, unfortunately, Johnson did give way, with the result that the UK has become one of the few countries in the world to have an internal border, with goods transported between two parts of the same country subject to customs checks ultimately administered by a foreign power.
Does Starmer secretly want Britain to rejoin the EU, and is doing everything within his power to make our situation so humiliating that the British public eventually come round to the view that we would be better off a full member of the EU?
That would certainly make sense of his strategy of allowing the ECJ to lord it over our lives.
It is, beyond doubt, what the EU is up to. Just look what else it is trying to get away with, such as demanding the return of access to UK waters for the EU fishing fleet.
The EU knows full well that is a crucial issue for people who voted Brexit because it cuts to the heart of the issue of sovereignty.
If we were to be forbidden from controlling access to foreign fishing vessels we would have effectively surrendered on the three-word slogan which is widely credited for winning the referendum: Take Back Control.
That has now become the EU’s slogan.
It wants to reassert its influence on every aspect of Britain’s economic life — and all in return for a few concessions which are supposed to make trade a little easier between Britain and the EU.
But we are already supposed to have a trade deal, so why the need to make any more demands on Britain?
There are far better opportunities for Britain out there. It is true that the EU’s devious “non-tariff” barriers have made life a misery for some Britain exporters who sell to EU customers.
Demands for various certificates are all designed to block the free trade we notionally enjoy.
But commerce has adjusted — and without the sky falling in or without permanent gaps on supermarket shelves.
So why is Starmer so desperate to cuddle up with the EU?
He is seeking to reattach our economy back to an economic bloc where economic growth is sluggish to non existent.
If Starmer wants more trade, why not promote it with the US, and with the fast-growing economies of the Pacific Rim?
The previous government made a start on this by applying for membership of the Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership, which we formally joined this week.
Starmer, however, seems to want to take us back down the plughole of low ambitions that is the EU.
Sorry, but we’ve already been down there and 17million Brexit voters have no intention of allowing Britain to be sucked back in.
