A Liberal Democrat MP called out the “big elephant in the room” in Labour’s Budget last night on BBC Question Time: Brexit.
Munira Wilson and the rest of the panel began by discussing whether the new government’s financial plans do pave the way for economic growth, which Labour claims is its mission.
While pointing out the lack of funding for social care, the Lib Dem spokesperson for education said: “The other big elephant in the room, of course, is Brexit.
“And this government, like the previous government, won’t do anything to repair our broken relationship with Europe.
“If we are serious about getting growth back, we have got to start repairing our relationship with Europe.
“But Keir Starmer, even in the long-term, has written off any idea of going back into the single market. We know that’s hit growth by 4%.”
The prime minister has made it clear that resetting the relationship with the EU will not reverse Brexit.
Wilson also told BBC Question Time that one business in her constituency lost 25% of its business “overnight due to Brexit red tape”.
“They tried to fill that gap again, but how much more could they have grown if they hadn’t had that impact,” she said.
Similarly, the Lib Dem leader Ed Davey told journalists at a press gallery lunch on Thursday that “without rebuilding our relationship with our European partners and getting a better trade deal”.
He added: “It’s just not going to happen. We can’t wait around to get our economy going, we need to have some urgency in rebuilding that relationship.”
It’s worth noting that Keir Starmer and the European Commission president Ursula von der Leyen agreed last month to hold regular UK-EU summits on the future of the cross-Channel relationship.
While the UK PM has rejected Brussels’ offer of a youth mobility scheme, he did tell the press at the time that “resetting” the relationship “does matter”.
“I have made it clear what our position is and in particular that free movement is a red line,” he said on October 2. “But today wasn’t about those individual issues, it was about the way in which we will conduct those negotiations and the emphasis was on what we can do, not what we can’t do, and on deliverables rather than running commentary.”
The Home Office is in the process of setting up a new “Europe Hub” too, which is meant to build on border security.