Labour’s plan to cosy up to Brussels will leave the UK facing the ‘worst of both worlds, Kemi Badenoch has warned.
Downing Street confirmed on Monday that Keir Starmer will press ahead with plans to align Britain with EU rules in a range of areas, despite warnings it will unpick Brexit and make Britain a ‘rule-taker’.
The Prime Minister, who once promised to respect the decision to leave the EU, said that closer alignment with Brussels was now ‘in the UK’s best interest’.
Sir Keir also defended controversial plans that could prevent parliament from having a vote on whether to adopt new EU laws.
He claimed that the fallout from the war would require ‘a closer economic relationship with our European allies because Brexit did deep damage to the economy’.
He told MPs that the opportunities available from watering down Brexit were ‘simply too big to ignore’.
But Mrs Badenoch warned that Sir Keir’s Brexit reset would undermine Britain’s right to make its own laws, while doing nothing to boost growth.
The Conservative leader said the PM had run out of ideas to kickstart the economy and had resorted to saying ‘we’ll do whatever the EU is doing, and hopefully that will work’.
‘It’s the worst of both worlds,’ she told LBC. ‘So we’re not in the EU where we can have a say, but we’re still taking the rules and we’re not using our sovereignty. That’s the worst of both worlds.
‘The EU wants to compete with the UK. It’s not going to make rules that are going to make our lives easier. It’s going to make rules that make life easier for them. We have to do what’s right for the British national interest. And what I see is that Keir Starmer doesn’t have any ideas.’
Government sources confirmed that new legislation will use controversial ‘Henry VII powers’ to bring laws into line with EU regulation without the need to get parliamentary approval.
Sir Keir is facing a growing backlash over the ‘undemocratic’ plan.
Nigel Farage accused the PM of ‘literally bypassing parliament’ in order to ‘put us back into regulatory alignment’ with the EU. The Reform UK leader said the move would see Britain lose the ‘massive opportunity’ of being outside the single market.
Mr Farage has branded Labour’s plan a ‘backdoor attempt to drag Britain back under EU control’.
Even the Liberal Democrats, who want to rejoin the single market, questioned the PM’s approach.
Education spokesman Munira Wilson told the BBC’s Westminster Hour show that any attempt to ‘cut Parliament out of the loop’ would be ‘wrong and undemocratic’.
In opposition, Sir Keir opposed the use of such powers, saying they resulted in ‘silencing parliament’ and handing ministers a ‘legislative blank cheque’.
But Downing Street said it was ‘entirely normal’ to use secondary legislation, which does not usually require a parliamentary vote.
The PM’s official spokesman said Brexit had been ‘hugely damaging’ to the UK and that the benefits of closer alignment with Brussels were now ‘indisputable’.
Sir Keir told the BBC: ‘We’re in a world where there’s massive conflict, great uncertainty, and I strongly believe that the UK’s best interests are in a stronger, closer relationship with Europe, whether that’s defence and security… energy, inevitably, and also, our economy.’
‘A stronger, closer relationship with Europe is in the UK’s best interest, particularly in a world that is as volatile as it is at the moment, and I know that worries a lot of people.’
But former Brexit negotiator Lord Frost said there was ‘no evidence of any economic shock from Brexit’.
The former Cabinet minister said Labour was engaged in ‘rejoining part of the single market’, adding: ‘This is about submitting the country to laws made by another institution that we have no say in whatsoever’.
Downing Street insisted that the UK would have a ‘say’ over future EU laws that would apply in this country, but could not explain how this would work or whether Britain would have the ability to block proposals it did not like.
Reform UK’s deputy leader Richard Tice said the plan was ‘outrageous’ and promised his party would ‘reverse such a betrayal’ if it won power.
Meanwhile, Reform claimed that the cost of the millions of migrants who arrived between 2021-4 would amount to £20,000 a household.
In a report, the party said the cost of NHS care, benefits and housing would reach £622bn by 2085 – a sum they claimed would ‘bankrupt’ the taxpayer.
A large number of this influx of migrants – which the party referred to as the ‘Boriswave’ because it happened under the former PM – are set to be given indefinite leave to remain.
Between 2021 and 2024, annual net immigration averaged more than double the previous decade and hit a record high of 944,000 in the year ending March 2023.
The influx included large numbers of people fleeing Hong Kong and Ukraine as well as a huge increase in workers in shortage occupations.
Reform announced at a press conference on Monday that it would hold an inquiry into the huge rise in non-EU migration during that period.
It raises the prospect that Conservative defectors to the party former immigration minister Robert Jenrick and former home secretary Suella Braverman could be made to give evidence.
