Keir Starmer faces an agonising dilemma – to call out the Brexit disaster or to stay silent

In a sideswipe at Prime Minister’s Questions this week, Boris Johnson claimed (falsely) that Keir Starmer “would like to take us back into the EU”.

He will say it again and again before the next general election.

David Canzini, Downing Street’s new deputy chief of staff, has put delivering on Brexit promises at the top of the government’s five priorities – remarkably, above the cost of living crisis, the NHS, crime and migrant boats. He told advisers: “If you don’t think that [Brexit] is a priority you shouldn’t be here.”

Johnson’s campaign to persuade voters (and his impatient Brexiteer MPs) that leaving the EU has been a success, has made Starmer ultra cautious about exposing the increasingly obvious flaws in the PM’s deal. Accusing the government of delivering “low growth and high tax” is a good attack line for Labour, but the party ties one hand behind its own back because it won’t dare to say Brexit is one reason for low growth.

Starmer promises to “make Brexit work” but says little about how. He rules out rejoining the single market or customs union because that would give Johnson’s fantasy Labour policy some credence.

Johnson’s election slogan will be “keep Brexit done”, allowing him to claim Labour would undo it. But Brexit isn’t done. As The Independent revealed, the government will likely postpone the introduction of checks on EU imports for a fourth time because they would compound the squeeze on living standards.

And Brexit isn’t working. Even Rishi Sunak, our pro-Leave chancellor, admits it is harming trade, saying it was “unsurprising” the changing UK-EU relationship will “have an impact.”

I don’t remember the Brexiteers saying so in 2016.

Treasury officials, derided then by Vote Leave for their doom-laded “project fear” warnings, now feel vindicated. Nick Macpherson, the crossbench peer and former permanent secretary at the Treasury, told a Policy Exchange event: “It is rare that the Treasury gets the long-term estimate of the costs of something right… six years on from the referendum, the effect on growth from Brexit is tangible.”

He predicted that in 20 years, after one of the Tories’ “periodic upheavals”, the pendulum would swing back and the UK would have a far closer relationship with the EU, short of rejoining.

The Office for Budget Responsibility fiscal watchdog said last week that overall UK trade volumes are down by about 15 per cent on what would have happened if the country had stayed in the EU, because it had made it more expensive to trade with its largest trading partner.

Such evidence has fuelled an intense behind-the-scenes debate inside Labour on whether the party should end its virtual silence on Brexit.

Feelings ran high at a discussion staged by the Progressive Britain think tank this week. “Why is our leader refusing to enlighten the electorate about how they were lied to by the Brexiteers?” one member asked. The sharp pro-Starmer reply was: “Because he wants to fight current and future battles in order to win the next election and bring Remainers and Leavers together.”

Another Starmer critic argued: “Labour cannot make Brexit work because Brexit will never work. The economic imperatives mean that sooner or later the UK will be forced to rejoin the EU. Let’s make it sooner.” The counter view was: “We lost six years ago. Deal with that and deal with the situation as it is now. Stop refighting something we lost.”

There is no sign Starmer will bow to internal critics who want the opposition to live up to its name on Brexit. To be fair, the Labour leader does have an agonising dilemma; attacking Johnson on the issue could undermine his key goal of regaining the red wall seats. He does not want to be accused of telling Leave voters they were stupid.

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However, while the UK remains split down the middle on Brexit, opinion is shifting. The Leavers of 2016 have become less optimistic about its benefits, and Remainers more pessimistic. The number of Leavers who would still vote to leave the EU has dropped from 87 per cent to 80 per cent in the past year.

Significantly, some Starmer allies are starting to wonder whether he might be making the wrong call. They ask: what if, by the next election, most voters judge that Brexit isn’t working? Their worry: Labour might then be seen as complicit in the disaster and unable to criticise the Tories for it.

As one told me: “For understandable reasons, Keir has climbed aboard the Brexit bandwagon. But where are we left if voters come to see that it might crash off the road?”