Labour leader says ‘there’s no case for going back to the EU’ before he publishes report that proposes reforms to UK’s political system
Good morning. Keir Starmer has been doing interviews this morning ahead of the publication of the report from the party’s Commission on the UK’s Future, chaired by Gordon Brown. Most of the reporting in advance has focused on a recommendation in the report that the House of Lords should be abolished, partly because on Saturday the Times ran a story claiming “proposals to abolish the House of Lords are set to be watered down after an eleventh-hour row between Gordon Brown and Sir Keir Starmer’s advisers”. The paper claimed that Brown wanted a firm commitment from Starmer to abolish the Lords, while Starmer’s team just wanted to commit to consulting on reform. That is why when Starmer was on the Today programme a few minutes ago, the first question was about whether Starmer wanted to abolish the Lords.
Starmer said he did – but he said that when that would happen would be a matter for consultation.
No, at this stage, I don’t think it would. And there’s no case for going back to the EU, or going back into the single market.
I do think there’s a case for a better Brexit. I do think there’s a very strong case for making Brexit work.
I think trade has gone down because the deal that we’ve got is not a very good deal. I think we can move from getting Brexit done, which is all that we’ve managed at the moment, to making Brexit work and I do think there’s a better deal.
But do I think … that going back into years of wrangling, years of uncertainty, is going to help the economy? No, I don’t.
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