Keir Starmer is said to be looking at an agreement with the EU that would align Britain with the single market for goods in his latest move to water down Brexit.
The Prime Minister is said to be looking at proposals that would see UK firms follow Brussels rules with no say on how they are drawn up.
The scheme has been likened to Theresa May’s ‘backstop’ from Brexit talks in 2017 and 2018 that would have kept Northern Ireland inside the single market until a way around a hard border on the island or Ireland could be found.
However, the agreement being looked at would stop short of crossing Sir Keir’s often mentioned ‘red lines’ of formally joining the single market or the customs union.
Instead ministers would look at ways to reduce the paperwork for firms wanting to export from and import to the bloc.
Sir Keir has made no secret of his desire to move the UK back into the EU orbit a decade after the Brexit vote.
‘We’re in a world where there’s massive conflict, great uncertainty, and I strongly believe the UK’s best interests are in a stronger, closer relationship with Europe, whether that’s defense and security, of course, energy, I think inevitably, and also our economy,’ he told BBC radio last week.
‘What we’re doing with this piece of legislation is trying to make trade easier so there’s less burdens for businesses and that, of course, translates into lower prices.’
His comments follow reports from the Guardian newspaper and the BBC saying the Government was planning a bill that could reduce the role of parliament in voting on ‘dynamic alignment’ with EU rules, to which a No10 spokesman said the main legislation would be voted on.
‘The bill will go through parliament in the normal way,’ the spokesperson said. ‘Any new treaties or deals with the EU will also face parliamentary scrutiny, and parliament will have a role in approving new EU laws required under those deals via secondary legislation.’
According to the Telegraph Nick Thomas-Symonds, the Brexit minister, told a Brussels conference last week that the UK should be ready to look at closer alignment ‘and that includes further areas of the Single Market’.
