What should pro-Europeans do now? It is a difficult question – especially for Keir Starmer and Labour

What should pro-Europeans do now? There are agonised debates among Remainers and I have been tuning in to them in recent months at online conferences and think tank events.

Some pro-EU figures want to abandon hopes of rejoining the EU and focus on making the UK’s new relationship with the bloc better and closer. But that is viewed as treacherous defeatism by ardent Europhiles in Labour and the Greens, while the Liberal Democrats at their spring conference pledged to campaign for the UK to rejoin the single market and customs union and build support for re-entry.

Many pro-Europeans are convinced the country will sooner or later realise it has made a catastrophic mistake over Brexit and seek to rejoin the EU club. I think they will be proved right about the economics but, sadly, I doubt that the British people will be clamouring to return.

In normal times, the flaws in Boris Johnson’s threadbare trade deal, finally ratified by the European parliament this week, would have received much more media play. Instead, his vaccine rollout triumph and the EU’s disaster have been a good advert for Brexit. Although his boost won’t last forever, the public’s instinct will be to make the best of it.

Pragmatists are widening their horizons. Best for Britain, an anti-Brexit campaign, relaunched itself this week to promote internationalist values and a closer relationship with Europe and the world. Polling for the organisation shows that two in three Britons, including 60 per cent of Leave voters, support cooperating with the EU in areas of mutual benefit.

Naomi Smith, the group’s chief executive, insisted: “When you strip away the divisive shell of Brexit, Britons are inherently internationalist.”

Best for Britain’s shift makes sense but struck a raw nerve for Europhiles. Will Hutton, the journalist and author, told the group at its relaunch event: “You have just raised the white flag.”

Passions are also running high during a fierce debate inside Labour. Shadow cabinet ministers say Keir Starmer wants to “move on” from Brexit rather than antagonise the red wall Leave voters who went Tory in 2019; he needs to win them back. Indeed, there is nervousness in Labour circles that the red wall might get even smaller next Thursday, when the Tories hope to capture Hartlepool in a parliamentary by-election.

Many Labour members and a sizeable chunk of the party’s MPs want Starmer to expose the holes in Johnson’s deal and set out how a Labour government would improve it. Starmer thinks it too early to do so. Eventually, I’m told, he will seek changes to the deal that business wants, in the hope of enhancing Labour’s pro-business credentials in the process.

Opinion polls suggest the Brexit divide that dominated British politics from 2016 has dissipated. Recent research for the British Future think tank found that only 25 per cent of people mainly define themselves politically as a Remainer or Leaver.

But the Brexit vote wasn’t only about the EU. The underlying causes of the Leave victory are still alive and kicking – people, and towns, left behind by globalisation, inequality and a need for “levelling up” made even more pressing by coronavirus. Satisfying these high voter aspirations will be a much bigger challenge for Johnson than Brexit itself. He will try to maintain his 2019 election coalition by waging culture wars like his discredited racial disparity review but red wall voters will want to see progress on their ground by the next election.

So reminding voters he “got Brexit done” will not be enough. Johnson would love Labour to keep the EU issue alive by promising to take Britain back into the customs union or single market, as Starmer will come under internal pressure to do.

Many Labour members who voted for him to become leader did so because of his pro-Europeanism – as shadow Brexit secretary, he was the architect of Labour’s backing for a Final Say referendum – as well as his suggestion he would keep much of Jeremy Corbyn’s policy agenda. Starmer’s critics warn that Labour cannot take pro-European supporters for granted and could lose votes to the Lib Dems and Greens.

However, Starmer is focusing on regaining the red wall rather than the size of Labour’s majorities in its liberal metropolitan heartlands. I think he is right to resist playing into Johnson’s hands.

The EU issue goes to the heart of Labour’s dilemma about its election pitch – a familiar one for opposition parties, which becomes more acute the longer they spend in the wilderness. If Starmer did win power – a huge task – he could afford to be more pro-European than he would advertise in advance. But if he paraded his pro-EU credentials now, Labour would be even less likely to win.