Labour united over summer after Brexit splits - Sir Keir Starmer
Sir Keir Starmer admits to multiple differences but says the Tories should have done what Labour did and come to an agreement.
Monday 23 October 2017 14:07, UK
Labour is divided on Brexit, a party spokesman has admitted, but came to an agreement over the summer that its leader signed up to.
Sir Keir Starmer has told a meeting of accountants that there are multiple differences of opinion on the subject at Westminster, shaped by a variety of factors.
The shadow Brexit secretary said MPs are divided over the extent to which they think the EU has been a good, reasonable or bad idea, whether they think the result of the referendum should be accepted or not and the extent to which Brexit is supported in each constituency.
But, he said, he had got his party to have a discussion during the summer recess in private and arrive at a position that "everyone agreed to".
And, in a dig at members of Theresa May's government who discuss the Government's aims outside of the bounds of Cabinet responsibility, he said he had got agreement across the shadow cabinet "including Jeremy Corbyn, because what I did not want was a piece in one of the national Sundays, about what was Keir Starmer's view... I wanted something that truly represented the Labour Party".
"And we got that. Jeremy signed up to that and he repeated it in his conference speech." he added.
"He... allowed me to develop our policy in a way that I wanted to and he signed up to it."
Sir Keir was referring to a Labour's dramatic policy shift to supporting full participation in the single market and customs union during a transition period after Brexit, which emerged in September.
He was speaking at a discussion about Brexit at the Institute of Chartered Accountants in England and Wales on Monday.
Sir Keir said: "Although, obviously, there are still discussions to be had and differences of views to be hammered out - of course there are - actually, what we achieved over the summer was very significant.
"The Government should have gone through the same difficult exercise."
Commentators have blamed the lack of agreement on Brexit among Theresa May's Cabinet members, some of which has been public, for slowing the pace of negotiations with Brussels.
On Sunday, in an attempt to secure a veto for MPs on the final Brexit deal.
It comes amid that the slow pace of negotiations towards a transition deal will force firms to relocate jobs out of the UK.