The left-led government appears to have begun what may be the process of softening up the public for overturning the largest democratic mandate in British history.
Justice Secretary David Lammy, who seems to have found a niche in the government of soft-launching Labour’s most controversial new policies, refused seven times to rule out reversing Brexit. If enacted, the policy would both be a massive affront to over 17 million Britons who voted in a referendum to leave — more people who have ever voted for anything in British democratic history — and Labour’s own party platform manifesto at the last election.
When appealing to the public for their votes before that general election, Sir Keir Starmer’s Labour had reassured:
We will be confident in our status outside of the EU…
…With Labour, Britain will stay outside of the EU…
…There will be no return to the single market, the customs union, or freedom of movement.
While Lammy at least confirmed rejoining the European Union is not “currently” government policy, he qualified the statement by adding “…but”. Expressing his view that it’s “self-evident” national economies were better off inside the rules-based European Union, Lammy said leaving the EU “badly damaged our economy.
British broadsheet The Daily Telegraph reported he’d said: “Our future is inextricably linked to the European Union and we should be working deliberately over time to be closer, that’s my view”. Lammy implied that he would go further in bis remarks, but under the British government doctrine of collective responsibility, while Labour’s policy remained officially to stay out of the European Union, he would not.
The paper cited Tory veteran Priti Patel, who said the remarks showed the Prime Minister would “take us into the EU by the back door”. As for Lammy, Patel said he’d “never got over” losing the 2016 Brexit referendum.
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