Keir Starmer Criticises Brexiteers Wild Promises

Keir Starmer has launched an outspoken attack on the “wild promises” made by Brexiteers as he warned against calls for the UK to next quit Nato and the European Convention of Human Rights.

In outspoken comments, the prime minister said the country was still “dealing with the consequences” of the vote to leave the European Union in 2016.

In his annual Lord Mayor’s Banquet speech at the Guildhall in London, Starmer said it had harmed the economy and led to “the degradation of political debate”.

The PM said: “For decades there was a broad consensus about Britain’s role in the world; a consensus that transcended party politics, and sometimes deep disagreements about specific issues.

“We were of one mind – that Britain should be outward looking, engaged and active on the world stage, a powerful voice at the top table. That was taken as a given, part of who we are in line with the greatest traditions of this country. But then Brexit broke that consensus.

“I want to speak very frankly. The Brexit vote was a fair, democratic expression, and I will always respect that.

“But how it was sold and delivered was simply wrong. Wild promises were made to the British people and not fulfilled. We are still dealing with the consequences today, in our economy and in trust, in the degradation of political debate.”

Starmer then took aim at those who backed leaving the EU, like Reform UK leader Nigel Farage, who now back leaving the ECHR as well, claiming that would make it easier for the government to deport illegal immigrants.

Others, like Green Party leader Zack Polanski, have called for the UK to leave Nato.

The PM said “the idea that leaving the EU was the answer to all our care and concerns has clearly been proved wrong”.

“But that same spurious argument is now being made about the European Convention on Human Rights, with the same wild promises being made to the country by the same people – walk away and all our problems will be solved,” he said.

“To consider Brexit a template for our future foreign policy is utterly reckless. Yes, the ideology lives on. It’s an attitude of utter impunity which says ‘insult our neighbours, sever our alliances, choose between the EU and the US, sever links with China’.

“Some even argue that we should leave Nato. Let me be really clear about that. At this moment, when war has returned to Europe, leaving the most successful military alliance in history would be catastrophic. Even to contemplate it is a sign of deep unseriousness in gravely serious times.

“But that’s where this corrosive, inward-looking attitude leads. It offers grievance rather than hope. A declinist vision of a lesser Britain – not a Great Britain.

“Moreover, it is a fatal misreading of the moment. Ducking the fundamental challenge posed by a chaotic world – a world which is more dangerous and unstable than at any point for a generation. Where international events reach directly into our lives, whether we like it or not.

’In these times, we would not take control by turning inward, we would surrender it.”