{"id":104765,"date":"2025-05-15T23:29:15","date_gmt":"2025-05-15T23:29:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/104765\/"},"modified":"2025-05-15T23:29:15","modified_gmt":"2025-05-15T23:29:15","slug":"the-prime-minister-appears-to-know-less-about-brexit-than-simon-cowell","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/104765\/","title":{"rendered":"The prime minister appears to know less about Brexit than Simon Cowell"},"content":{"rendered":"

There was a touch of the nasty talent show judge about Keir Starmer at Prime Minister\u2019s Questions this week, when Plaid Cymru\u2019s Liz Saville Roberts asked:\u00a0\u201cIs there any belief he holds which survives a week in Downing Street?\u201d and the PM shot back:\u00a0\u201cYes, the belief that she talks rubbish.\u201d<\/p>\n

Supporters of the Welsh independence party affected to be gravely affronted, but the snarky quip was hardly the most offensive thing Starmer had come up with in recent days. In a No 10 press conference on Monday he used the phrase \u201cisland of strangers\u201d during a speech on immigration, regrettably echoing Enoch Powell\u2019s remark during his 1968 \u201crivers of blood\u201d speech, in which he imagined that at some point in a multicultural future, British white people would find themselves \u201cmade strangers in their own country\u201d.<\/p>\n

It barely seems to matter that Starmer\u2019s call for \u201ca nation that walks forward together\u201d had little in common with Powell\u2019s plea for the races to be kept apart, or that Labour\u2019s new immigration crackdown has got plenty to do with taking the sting out of Brexiteer complaints about the reciprocal youth mobility scheme that will form part of next week\u2019s \u201cBrexit reset\u201d summit with the EU. For many people, Keir Starmer no longer resembles the man they voted for.<\/p>\n

Read more: Spies, lies and Britain\u2019s prize: we still need a Brexit enquiry<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n

Speaking of nasty talent show judges and people who no longer look like themselves, Simon Cowell said his piece on Brexit this week. Speaking on Elizabeth Day\u2019s\u00a0How To Fail\u00a0podcast, the\u00a0X Factor\u00a0and\u00a0Britain\u2019s Got Talent\u00a0judge said he believed the public \u201cdidn\u2019t really understand what they were voting for\u201d in\u00a0the 2016 referendum. He added: \u201cI think if it was to happen again, I believe that we would vote to stay with Europe\u2026 so let\u2019s have [another]\u00a0referendum. I really mean that.\u201d<\/p>\n

Cowell then suggested that if another vote were to take place, he\u2019d organise a TV debate show called \u201cYou The Jury\u201d, bringing together \u201chighly intelligent individuals to present both sides of the argument\u201d. It sounds less riveting than my new reality TV concept Island Of Strangers, in which 1,000 people who don\u2019t know each other are deposited on a desert island and try to uncover the identity of the only one of them who still plans to vote Labour.<\/p>\n

Even as he prepares to welcome leading European Union figures on Monday, Starmer has unveiled an immigration policy (called\u00a0\u201cimmoral and stupid\u201d by\u00a0TNE\u2019s Jonty Bloom<\/a>) that makes rejoining the EU and free movement feel further away than ever. Did anyone think that a Remainer Labour prime minister would appear to know less about Brexit than Simon Cowell?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"There was a touch of the nasty talent show judge about Keir Starmer at Prime Minister\u2019s Questions this…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":104766,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5226],"tags":[802,748,2000,299,5187,1699,4884,807,16,15],"class_list":{"0":"post-104765","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-brexit","8":"tag-brexit","9":"tag-britain","10":"tag-eu","11":"tag-europe","12":"tag-european","13":"tag-european-union","14":"tag-great-britain","15":"tag-keir-starmer","16":"tag-uk","17":"tag-united-kingdom"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/114514451738508497","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/104765","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=104765"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/104765\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/104766"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=104765"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=104765"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=104765"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}