Euan McColm: Keir Starmer's refusal to address damage of Brexit is down to fear of Nigel Farage

It’s not quite £350 million a week for the NHS, is it?

Asked, on the fifth anniversary of Brexit, what benefits the UK had enjoyed as a result, a spokesman for the Prime Minister pointed to freedom from European Union procurement rules.

I don’t recall that being a hot issue during the referendum campaign of 2016 when Boris Johnson and Nigel Farage promised leaving the EU would mean untold riches for us all.

Five years after Johnson, in his own words, “got Brexit done”, it remains a central part of our political debate. Many of the divisions created almost nine years ago remain. Perhaps they’ve deepened.

Where there is some unity among Remainers and Leavers, it’s over the question of whether Brexit has succeeded. Neither group is satisfied with how the United Kingdom’s departure from the EU has played out.

A poll published by YouGov to mark the fifth anniversary of Brexit shows a majority now believe it was a mistake. And not only do 55 per cent of voters regret leaving the EU, the same number say they would support rejoining. Only 11 per cent say Brexit has been more success than failure.

YouGov’s survey of more than 2,200 people shows that dissatisfaction with Brexit runs at similar levels in both England and Scotland. The result of the referendum which saw two thirds of Scots vote Remain, may have created new constitutional tension but now the people are as one: The whole thing has been a costly mess.

Despite a (small) backlash against Brexit, Nigel Farage’s Eurosceptic Reform Party continues to win support.

A recent poll by Techne UK put Reform on 24 per cent, a point ahead of the Conservatives and just two behind Labour.

Farage marked this remarkable development with a rally in the North West Essex constituency of Tory leader Kemi Badenoch where he told Reform members the Tories should be “bloody scared” of them.

I think that’s probably fair and that it applies to the Conservatives in Scotland just as much as it does to their colleagues in the south.

We have grown accustomed, over the years, to hearing Eurosceptic politicians defend the charge that leaving the EU has damaged the UK with the claim that Brexit hasn’t been done properly. It’s never entirely clear how the Brexit we have differs from a “proper” Brexit nor how this perfect, imagined transition might have changed the fact departure from the EU has damaged British business and limited opportunities for all of us.

Last week’s YouGov poll may have shown a shift of support in favour of membership of the EU but this buyers’ remorse clearly isn’t doing Farage any harm. This, surely, is because the Reform leader has long since ceased to be seen as merely a Eurosceptic politician. The success or failure of Brexit is irrelevant to those voters who see Farage as a necessary disruptor.

In her 2017 book, “Democracy”, Condoleezza Rice – who served as US Secretary of State under President George W Bush – warned of what she called “the four horsemen of the apocalypse”: Populism; nativism; isolationism; protectionism. Rice outlined her fears about the impact of these forces while Donald Trump, freshly into his first term in office, was playing to the basest instincts of his supporters.

Farage succeeds by doing the same. It doesn’t matter to his acolytes that all the benefits of Brexit he promised have failed to materialise. If they care at all about that, they can square it by telling themselves that Brexit just hasn’t been done properly.

I don’t think they do care. If the UK had never been a member of the EU, Farage would have found some other issue to use as the vehicle for his brand of rabble-rousing populism.

When former Prime Minister David Cameron took the reckless decision to announce a referendum on the UK’s membership of the EU, he believed not only that Remain would win but that he would end years of internal Tory division over Europe.

Cameron foolishly believed the Eurosceptic beast could be satisfied or cowed. This is a mistake our current Prime Minister seems determined to repeat.

Sir Keir Starmer will not speak bluntly about the damage wrought by Brexit because he might open the door in Labour constituencies to Farage and then arm him with the message that the PM doesn’t care about their wishes.

Over the issue of Brexit and the harm it has caused, Starmer has displayed – depending on your tolerance for the cynicism of some politicians – wise pragmatism or moral cowardice.

I’d say the latter. Farage, Trump and their fellow populists cannot be quieted. The Reform leader’s blunt messages on immigration would land with certain voters whether the UK was back in the EU or not.

Farage brags that he expects one day to become Prime Minister. This is laughable until one remembers that he led UKIP to victory in the 2014 European Elections and did the same for the Brexit Party five years later.

But while Farage is a serious political player whose ambitions should not be dismissed, Starmer should let Badenoch worry about tangling with Reform on the populist right and start more clearly defining the impact of Brexit.

Nigel Farage has built a career on the creation of – and then battle with – bogeymen. Starmer cannot expect a good faith debate with the Reform leader.

The Prime Minister has, with the permission of his colleagues, more than four years left in office. Is he going to spend that time cautiously fumbling with the disaster of Brexit because he fears Reform advances into Labour’s “red wall” or is he going to start speaking for the majority who think it’s time for the UK to rejoin the EU?