Yvette Cooper: ‘We’re not returning to the EU. We need to move on’

Ahead of Keir Starmer’s meeting with European leaders tomorrow, Home Secretary Yvette Cooper joined Sky News and reiterated Labour’s ‘red lines’: no return to the customs union, the single market or to free movement. Cooper told Trevor Phillips that Labour wanted to get rid of some of the bureaucracy around customs arrangements, and said that the deal the Conservatives had with the EU ‘was not a good one’. Phillips asked if the government was still negotiating a youth mobility scheme. Cooper said net migration had to come down, and that a youth mobility scheme was ‘not the right starting point… at all’. Phillips also suggested that the government might consider joining the ‘Pan European Mediterranean Convention’ to take away trade frictions. Cooper said the government would indeed try to reduce frictions, but emphasised there would be no return to a customs union.

Ed Davey: ‘We believe we should be back at the heart of Europe’

Speaking to Laura Kuenssberg, Liberal Democrat leader Ed Davey said he didn’t think ‘anyone would be surprised’ that the Liberal Democrats supported a return to the EU, but suggested the possibility was ‘a long way off’.