Starmer should never be allowed to forget his Brexit betrayal

Keir Starmer has set down Labour’s Brexit red lines: if his party wins power, he will not take the UK back into the EU’s single market or customs union, nor will he restore freedom of movement with the bloc. Instead, in a speech today, he will pledge to ‘break down’ the ‘fatberg of red tape’ that Boris Johnson’s Brexit deal has created for British businesses and he will get the Northern Ireland Protocol working too.

As the bulk of the UK’s political media credulously reports this preposterous posturing, interpreting it as a setback for pro-Europeans in Labour, presumably the expectation is that pro-Leave voters in marginal Red Wall seats will make their peace with the party and further turn against Johnson’s ailing Tory regime. In fact, what the episode is likely to demonstrate above all else is a crisis in Britain’s political media – especially the broadcast element which is supposed to be politically neutral – caused by the bias of its practitioners.