Keir Starmer always blames everyone else when things go wrong. (Image: Getty)
I am a big believer in Britain. I believe our best years are ahead of us. We are a resilient, innovative and proud nation. Small in size, but global in reach. We should be leading the world and not settling for anything less. And yet, two years into a Labour government, everything feels harder, and everything feels worse. Growth is weaker. Opportunity feels further away. Confidence is slipping.
That’s because Keir Starmer doesn’t believe in Britain’s future. Instead, he is a pioneer of managed decline. And when things go wrong, it is always somebody else’s fault.
And now, Brexit is to blame. On the economy, Labour’s record is already bleak. Growth remains anaemic, and the Office for Budget Responsibility has downgraded its forecasts for 2026 yet again. Rachel Reeves’s tax hikes have made things worse, hitting businesses, jobs and investment.
Young people in particular are paying the price. Unemployment among 16 to 24-year-olds is up to 16%, all on Labour’s watch. This means that more young people are being pushed onto welfare instead of into work. More are being locked out of saving, owning a home and building a secure future.
That is the real cost of Rachel Reeves’s tax-and-spend management of the economy. Aside from the economy, Starmer’s approach to the conflict in the Middle East has left people rightly anxious. They need strength and clarity in leadership. Not dither and delay.
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Britain remains exposed to global energy shocks, and yet Ed Miliband and Labour’s eco-zealots refuse to unlock the full potential of North Sea oil and gas. Under Labour, ideology comes before all else, even at the expense of national security.
The Conservatives understand that at a time of growing threats, Britain must make tough choices. Yet, Keir Starmer is too afraid of his own backbenchers to take control of the welfare Bill or to properly fund our Armed Forces.
It is this day-to-day survival mode that is now leading Starmer to distract everyone by attempting to blame Brexit. The problem is, when you go into a negotiation and you don’t believe in yourself or your product, you will always undervalue it.
Brussels will not offer concessions for free. A weak government, desperate for a deal, will be forced to give ground. And Keir Starmer has already shown in its handling of Chagos that he is blinkered by process instead of being driven by a desire to secure the best for Britain.
Labour, of course, is wrong to blame Brexit for its failures. When the Conservatives left office, inflation had returned to target, and the UK had been growing at the fastest rate in the G7, despite the enormous shocks of Covid and Putin’s invasion of Ukraine.
Britain was proving it could succeed outside the EU. Germany went into recession, and the EU has only become more insular, and Europe is looking to the far-Right for answers to its problems.
It was not Brexit that raised taxes, weakened the jobs market or damaged business confidence. It was Labour and the hapless combination of Starmer and Reeves. Now they want to use their failures as an excuse to unwind our independence and take us back into the EU by stealth.
I can see this in higher education. Even after Labour agreed to rejoin Erasmus, despite the success of the global Turing Scheme, there are now reports that they are considering further concessions on university fees as part of their EU negotiations.
Quite rightly, after leaving the EU, European students pay international rates. Labour is now looking to reverse that despite it costing huge amounts to our universities. This would be a direct subsidy to the EU, paid for by British taxpayers.
Rather than being a philosophy for leadership, Starmerism is now synonymous with capitulation. We should be under no doubt that the Brexit reversal is happening, and it is Britain that is giving while Brussels takes.
Starmer cannot fathom a situation where Britain carves its own way in the world. He just needs to be told what to do.
His great Brexit reset isn’t just bad policy. It is a failure of belief, and it must be resisted.
Saqib Bhatti is Conservative MP for Meriden and Solihull East