As the new year begins, a senior Labour MP has issued a stark warning to the Prime Minister, urging him to resist pressure from within his own party to reforge closer economic ties with the European Union.
A Solemn Pledge Under Scrutiny
In his New Year message, Sir Keir Starmer spoke of Britain turning a corner under his leadership. However, Dan Carden, the Labour MP for Liverpool Walton and chairman of the Blue Labour Parliamentary Group, has voiced strong concerns that this renewal must not come at the cost of a key election promise.
The 2024 Labour manifesto explicitly ruled out a return to the single market, the Customs Union, or freedom of movement. Mr Carden, who was re-elected on that platform, states he can never support the UK joining a Customs Union with Brussels. He reveals that such a move is now being "seriously contemplated" by some at the highest levels of government, including figures with "designs on the PM's job."
The Push for Closer EU Ties and Its Dangers
The article points to prominent Labour voices like Manchester Mayor Andy Burnham, who wants to see the UK back in the EU, and Health Secretary Wes Streeting, who advocates for a deeper trading relationship with Europe. This desire, Mr Carden acknowledges, stems from a hope for a quick economic fix, a sentiment he understands given the struggles with the cost of living, poverty, and poor housing in his own Liverpool constituency.
Nevertheless, he argues this path is fundamentally flawed. He describes the EU as a "low-growth bloc" with a declining share of global GDP. Rejoining a Customs Union, he contends, would force the UK to scrap its post-Brexit trade deals with dynamic growth centres like the USA and India. Most critically, it would mean "giving up our hard-won national freedoms" and would be "a recipe for disaster."
Calling for a Different Kind of Renewal
Instead of looking to Brussels, Mr Carden calls for a domestic renewal rooted in older Labour principles of brotherhood, mutual aid, and community action. He argues that neither an overbearing state nor an unfettered market holds all the answers to Britain's widespread "cultural and spiritual exhaustion."
The government's role, he suggests, should be to lift burdens and enable citizenship through education, apprenticeships, and a focus on good employment and housing. True transformation, he insists, will come from empowering people to "invent, to build and to sell," embracing the UK's Brexit freedoms to engage with the world.
He concludes with a direct plea to the Prime Minister: honour the solemn pledge made to the British people and do not seek to tie the UK into a new Customs Union or any arrangement that amounts to the same thing. The renewal Sir Keir seeks, Mr Carden asserts, will not be found in Brussels.
