With Brexit increasingly unpopular, Keir Starmer is plain wrong about the EU

A dead tree festooned with plastic tat. To me, that’s a pretty good metaphor for humanity’s current relationship with the natural world. To probably just about everyone else in my local area, the annual community Christmas tree is doubtless a beautiful symbol of festive joy. Bah, humbug, I say.

However, even an old curmudgeon like me recognises that, whether I like them or not, the production of Christmas trees is a business that provides people with gainful employment. Every year, Britain sticks up about eight million of the things (then, a few weeks later, chucks them out with the trash). Don’t tell Liz Truss, who was famously outraged by cheese imports, but many come from overseas.

This year, the price of these imports is set to increase because of post-Brexit border checks. Kasper Kortegaard Graven, of Danish Christmas tree wholesaler Kortegaard, told the Guardian: “We’ve gone from being able to trade between the EU and the UK without any paperwork... to having to have customs declarations and now phytosanitary certificates... The checks cost money, that increases the cost of the product – and ultimately the consumer pays more.”

Trade down by 15 per cent

This is just the latest example of the ‘Brexit effect’ as the need for ‘phytosanitary’ certificates, designed to prevent any unwanted pests and diseases from hitching a ride, comes into force. I don’t know what we did about these bugs in the good old days in the European Union, but it’s fairly obvious, even to me, that higher prices mean lower demand and, therefore, less trade.

Overall, such barriers have prompted the Office for Budget Responsibility to conclude that “both exports and imports will be around 15 per cent lower in the long run than if the UK had remained in the EU”. This is the kind of ‘doomster and gloomster’ stuff that ‘experts’ warned about before the 2016 Brexit referendum, but which we, as a nation, narrowly decided to dismiss, ignore or decide was worth it for all the myriad, mythical benefits of “taking back control” and “sovereignty”.

Joining the EU Customs Union would reduce barriers to trade between the UK and Europe (Picture: Denis Charlet) | POOL/AFP via Getty Images

However, surely, now this is no longer theoretical and is actually happening – not just to the Christmas tree industry, but anyone involved in imports and exports – it’s no longer possible to dismiss or ignore it. That, therefore, leaves the balancing act between the real-world damage to our economy and all that stuff about sovereignty. Perhaps I’m missing something...

If it was anything else at all, politicians and voters alike would rejoice that someone had found a way to increase UK trade by 15 per cent. This would be an extraordinary boost for an economy that has been accurately described as ‘lacklustre’, when not in a ‘technical’ recession, for years. Imagine this depressive weight suddenly being lifted, the renewed sense of optimism it could bring to the country, creating an upwards economic spiral that would draw in overseas investment.

Brexit not going well

However, rejoining the European Union remains the political cause that hardly dare speak its name in mainstream UK politics. Why? Because too many voters still regard Brexit as an article of faith. It does not matter that the UK economy has been much reduced and that this will continue to blight the lives of many. This is about national pride, and there is almost no reasoning with that.

Almost no reasoning, but not none. According to a YouGov poll of more than 3,000 people last month, in which participants were asked whether Brexit had gone “well or badly” since the EU transition period ended in December 2020, just 2 per cent said “very well” and 10 per cent said “fairly well”; in contrast, 25 per cent thought it had gone “fairly badly” while 34 per cent said “very badly”.

Those are big negatives for the Brexit project. Many Brexiteers now realise it’s not going well. The great champion of their cause, Boris Johnson, has also lost what credibility he had. The man who persuaded the nation to “Get Brexit Done” in 2019 is also the man who lied about Partygate and was effectively sacked for dishonesty for the third time in his life – on that occasion by his own MPs.

Not in my lifetime, says Starmer

Labour has been firm in its insistence that the Brexit debate is over. Just before the general election, Keir Starmer was asked if he thought the UK might rejoin the Customs Union or Single Market within his lifetime. He replied: “No, I don’t think that that is going to happen... I’ve been really clear about not rejoining the EU, the Single Market, or the Customs Union, or returning to freedom of movement.” Instead, he hopes to get a “better deal” than Johnson’s “botched” one.

However, if the UK’s fortunes fail to improve, he may start to realise that he’s simply wrong. Fiddling with the Brexit deal is never going to reduce the current barriers to trade in the way that joining the Customs Union would. There would be a row but I suspect it would not be emotive enough as an issue to raise a sufficient number of nationalist hackles, particularly as it could create a wave of economic good news that the country is crying out for.

With Labour’s faltering start showing no signs of ending and the Conservatives likely to tack even further to the right, the Liberal Democrats should seize the opportunity to win over liberal, pro-business, EU-sympathetic voters from both parties by ramping up their calls for a return to the Customs Union.

The Tories might be too far gone down the populist rabbit hole, but an effective Customs Union campaign by the Lib Dems would make some in Labour start to question Starmer’s position, particularly if things are not going well. If the UK rejoined the Customs Union, the benefits would then further undermine faith in Brexit and, potentially, put a return to the EU back on the agenda.

Spare me the trees and, for this Remainer, that would be like all my Christmases coming at once.