It may not feel or sound like it but Keir Starmer is a born-again Brexiteer. His achievements in office may be nugatory, his search for a legacy tragicomic, but there are countless actions this government boasts of which simply would not have been possible if we had stayed in the EU.
Earlier this year, Labour moved to protect our steel industry with a tariff package possible only because we have an independent trade policy. I was delighted this month when the minister in the Lords made it clear this was a Brexit benefit. Those same Brexit freedoms allowed the Chancellor last month to cut tariffs on more than 100 foodstuffs to ease the cost-of-living crisis. Both the Prime Minister and Chancellor have lauded trade deals with India and the US – arrangements with the world’s two largest democracies – more preferential than any the EU could secure.
And trade isn’t even the half of it. Relaxations of EU regulation in the City have brought new business. Operating outside the EU’s Digital Markets Act, our tech sector is outstripping continental neighbours. We have a decisive edge in AI and a globally respected AI Security Institute, which could not have been established in the EU. We are, albeit slowly, as Matt Ridley reports on page 18, developing gene-edited crops with higher yields and a less toxic environmental footprint. We have even imposed, as Bridget Phillipson delights in reminding us, VAT on private school fees. None of this would have been possible without Brexit.
