{"id":844211,"date":"2026-03-23T04:55:55","date_gmt":"2026-03-23T04:55:55","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/844211\/"},"modified":"2026-03-23T04:55:55","modified_gmt":"2026-03-23T04:55:55","slug":"reeves-just-proved-exactly-why-labour-cant-be-trusted-on-brexit","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/844211\/","title":{"rendered":"Reeves just proved exactly why Labour can\u2019t be trusted on Brexit"},"content":{"rendered":"

It was always naive to believe that Labour, once back in government, would give up on its ambition to restore Britain\u2019s \u201crightful\u201d place at the heart of the European Union<\/a>.<\/p>\n

I recall the peculiar sight of near-hysterical sorrow among Labour MPs on the morning after the referendum. A party that once prided itself on knowing exactly what its voters thought, and why, suddenly found itself regarding them with undisguised contempt.<\/p>\n

Today we regularly hear from senior cabinet ministers that Britain must get closer to the EU. The latest to set that particular hare running was the Chancellor, Rachel Reeves, who delivered a set-piece speech today<\/a> at this year\u2019s Mais Lecture at Bayes Business School in London.<\/p>\n

Culturally, Labour is simply not equipped to discuss Brexit impartially. If it must be mentioned, it should always be in disparaging terms. And so Reeves duly criticised Brexit for creating \u201cprofound uncertainty and rais[ing] new barriers for trade\u201d, warning that there is now a risk that Britain is stranded between powerful trading blocs<\/a>.<\/p>\n

This was miles away, politically and linguistically, from the advance briefing of her speech, which suggested she placed some importance on Britain\u2019s power to shape its own future. It turns out that such a future can only be shaped in the shadow of the EU.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere are areas in which regulatory autonomy may be necessary for sectors with unique characteristics or strategic importance for the UK, but that should be the exception, not the norm,\u201d she said, adding that \u201cto get this right, we must work more closely with businesses, both here and across Europe\u201d.<\/p>\n

Just as every major speech before an international audience must include criticism of Brexit and adoration of the EU, so it must also include an unnecessary and irrelevant jab at that peculiar three-month blip in British political history known as the Truss government, though to what ends no one is quite sure.<\/p>\n

Nevertheless, it was a box she was happy to tick, describing Kwasi Kwarteng\u2019s<\/a> mini-Budget a \u201cfinal, doomed, fanatical attempt at taking a sugar rush out of a broken economic model\u201d. It\u2019s almost as if Labour sees battalions of Truss supporters seeking to justify that strange period, when in fact everyone just wants to forget it happened at all. Well, we should be glad Reeves got that out of her system. Again.<\/p>\n

The Chancellor went on to state what anyone paying attention in the last 18 months would have no doubt about: that this Government believes in an interventionist state. In that vein she welcomed the Government\u2019s Employment Rights Act as being about dignity, security and providing fairness for working people.<\/p>\n

Continuing on that thread, she emphasised that the state has a role in protecting jobs from AI<\/a> and announced a new \u201cAI economics institute\u201d, which will examine the technology\u2019s impact on the economy and labour market. She also set Britain a target of having the fastest uptake of AI in the G7.<\/p>\n

But it was of course Labour\u2019s aspirations to be popular again among EU leaders that formed the centrepiece of Reeves\u2019s speech. This meant emphasising the negative impact Brexit may have had on the economy, although it is perhaps significant that when she talks about almost any other economic metric in any other context, Reeves is precise to the decimal point. But when it comes to the \u201cdamage\u201d she claims Brexit has wrought, she claims \u201cthere is evidence that the GDP impact could be as much as 8 per cent\u201d.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere is evidence\u201d. \u201cCould be\u201d. \u201cAs high as\u201d. Why the sudden imprecision, I wonder?<\/p>\n

Still, at least we\u2019re not rejoining, she assured us. Which is odd. After all, if she really believes that being outside the EU was that disastrous for our economy, wouldn\u2019t any chancellor be committed to doing anything \u2013 literally anything \u2013 to repair that damage? Unless \u2013 and hear me out here \u2013 Britain\u2019s growth, or lack of it, has nothing to do with the EU and more to do with decisions taken at Westminster by the Treasury. Hmm. An intriguing theory.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"It was always naive to believe that Labour, once back in government, would give up on its ambition…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":844212,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[5226],"tags":[802,748,2000,299,5187,1699,4884,8414,187847,619,16,15],"class_list":["post-844211","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-brexit","tag-brexit","tag-britain","tag-eu","tag-europe","tag-european","tag-european-union","tag-great-britain","tag-labour","tag-labour-mps","tag-rachel-reeves","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/116276716158601512","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/844211","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=844211"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/844211\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/844212"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=844211"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=844211"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=844211"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}