For as long as the current Westminster government remains in power, the UK remains stuck in a political era whose predominant tone is one of dishonesty.
Opinion polls and surveys have confirmed that the majority of people consider the Prime Minister to be a serial liar who cannot be trusted.
Our democracy will remain tainted for as long as Boris Johnson remains in Downing Street.
His brazen behaviour over partygate reflected a contemptuous attitude towards those who lost loved ones during the pandemic.
But of greater historical significance are his lies about the EU, which persuaded many that Brexit would be in their own – and Britain’s – interest.
With Mr Johnson now a discredited figure who has lost the electoral allure he once enjoyed, the main opposition party has an opportunity to offer a fresh approach that will cleanse British politics and inaugurate a new era based on honesty and integrity.
Unfortunately, however, it seems that Labour under Sir Keir Starmer is determined to forgo the chance to show true leadership by perpetuating the myth that it can “make Brexit work”.
Political leadership entails telling voters the truth – not shying away from it, as Sir Keir is doing with his new Brexit policy.
He made it clear in his speech that a Labour government would not seek to rejoin the single market or customs union – but instead would seek an improvement on the Tory Brexit which has created “a hulking ‘fatberg’ of red tape and bureaucracy – one that is hampering the flow of British business.”
Sir Keir added: “We will break that barrier down, unclog the arteries of our economy and allow trade to flourish once more.”
But the idea the EU is going to unpick the bureaucratic trading barriers it has in place with countries which are outside the single market and customs union, making an exception for the UK, is nonsensical.
It harks back to the “cakeism” of Tory negotiators with the EU who believed they could have the benefits of EU membership without having to pay for them.
Sir Keir knows that being out of the single market and customs union is very damaging to the British economy, but his advisers have told him that Leave voters in former “red wall” seats that Labour needs to win back will react badly if the freedom of EU citizens to work in the UK is restored.
Such advice flies in the face of polling evidence which suggests that the attractiveness of Brexit has diminished.
Last month’s by-elections in Wakefield and Tiverton and Honiton – won respectively by Labour and the Liberal Democrats – were both in seats that voted Leave in the 2016 EU referendum.
Alun Davies, the pro-EU Labour MS for Blaenau Gwent, believes Sir Keir has put the Welsh Government in a terrible position, forcing Ministers including Mark Drakeford to provide him with cover, despite their genuine support for the UK to be in the single market and customs union.
In November 2018, while the Finance Minister and weeks before taking over as Welsh Labour leader and First Minister, Mr Drakeford tweeted: “I told @theresa_may today that we need to move away from the chaos we saw last week [over Brexit]. We need long term stability and certainty by maintaining full & unfettered access to the single market & customs union.”
Mr Davies said: “There would, of course, be a strengthened relationship between the UK Government and the EU if Labour was in power. Labour, for example, certainly wouldn’t be seeking to break international law by tearing up an agreement it had negotiated.
“But that wouldn’t alter the trading barriers we face because we are not in the single market and customs union.
“We need a properly structured trading relationship with the EU and that means being in the single market and customs union – or, as the jargon goes, having full and unfettered access to it.”
Mr Davies acknowledged that would entail restoring the free movement of labour – something that would work both ways, with UK citizens able to work in EU countries as well as EU citizens being able to work in the UK.
Reacting to Sir Keir Starmer’s position on Brexit, the Blaenau Gwent MS said: “What is ridiculous is that he is now aligning the Labour Party with a hard Brexit position that not even Tory Brexiteers dared to advocate at the time of the referendum in 2016. They said the UK would remain in the single market and customs union, and their position only hardened later, once the referendum was won.
“It seems that at the next general election, likely to be in 2024, Labour will be supporting a Tory-hard Brexit which will not permit the kind of investment in the economy that Starmer is talking about.
“We’ve been living through miserable times in recent years and the people of Wales and the rest of the UK need some hope that things will get better.
“It’s often been said that bad generals fight the last battle rather than the current one. My belief is that people have moved on from the position they once held of wanting to ‘get Brexit done’.
“What they’re interested in now is improving the economy and dealing with the cost-of-living crisis. Getting back in the single market and customs union are essential steps to take. It’s appalling that Starmer has changed Labour’s policy without any kind of democratic debate involving party members. This leaves people like me in despair.”
Mr Drakeford was asked by Plaid Cymru leader Adam Price during First Minister’s Questions yesterday whether he still supported a return to the single market and customs union.
Mr Drakeford responded: “He’s completely right, of course, that we argued for leaving the EU on the basis that we would remain in the customs union and the single market, but that was before we left the EU.
“.Unfortunately, we have left the EU since then, and imagining that the prescriptions we put forward in those circumstances are simply still available to us today – I just say to [Adam Price] that it simply isn’t there to be done.
“So, while I agree with what he says about the damage that is being done to Welsh ports and to Welsh businesses, the problem he has is that he is advancing a solution that he doesn’t have available to him.”
It seems to me that if there was a will on the part of an incoming Labour government to rejoin the single market and customs union, such an objective could be achieved.
Equally, I think it highly unlikely that much could be achieved in tangible terms so far as reducing trade barriers is concerned if the UK remains outside the single market and customs union.
If Labour forms a government – whether with or without a majority – after the next general election, the likelihood is that voters will become disillusioned by the inevitable continuation of inflationary trade barriers that they had been led to believe would be scrapped.
One day, at some indeterminate date in the future, we may get a government that puts honesty above short-term tactical advantage
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