Keir Starmer has gone further than before in outlining his vision of a future UK relationship with the EU, saying Labour didn’t “want to diverge” – in comments that were immediately seized on by the Conservatives.
The Labour leader was speaking at an event in Canada bringing together liberal and centre-left politicians, where he said that “most of the conflict” since Brexit had arisen because the UK “wants to diverge and do different things to the rest of our EU partners”.
“Actually we don’t want to diverge, we don’t want to lower standards, we don’t want to rip up environmental standards, standards for people that work, food standards and all the rest of it,” he said during a question and answer session on Saturday at the event in Montreal.
The comments – which Labour said were not a new statement of policy – came as Starmer outlined on a number of occasions last week how a future UK-EU relationship would look, opening him up to attack from the Tories and prompting surprise from some in his own party who had come to regard Brexit as dangerous territory.
“I think those kinds of comments about not wanting to diverge will worry a lot of people that what he really wants to do is to unpick Brexit,” the chancellor, Jeremy Hunt, told LBC radio.
The foreign secretary, James Cleverly, tweeted: “Keir voted remain. Then he backed a second referendum. Then he didn’t. Now he wants to rejoin the EU in all but name.”
“No surprise – but good to have it said,” said the Conservative peer and former lead Brexit negotiator, David Frost.
Starmer’s visit to Canada came after he visited The Hague for talks with Europol, after which he had said he would aim to negotiate a returns agreement with EU countries to send back some unsuccessful asylum seekers if Labour wins power.
Earlier this week he was in Paris for talks with Emmanuel Macron and told the French president that he wanted to build an “even stronger” relationship between the two countries.
He had heralded the trip to Canada with an article in the Financial Times in which he committed to pursuing a major rewrite of the Brexit deal with the EU if Labour is elected, citing his responsibility to his children and future generations.
A spokesperson for the Labour party said the comments in Montrealwere “not a new statement and the fact of the matter is that the Tories haven’t taken advantage of Brexit to diverge on food or labour or environmental standards and if they are planning to do so then they should come clean and tell people that that’s their plan”.
The party had been clear that it did not support what is known as dynamic alignment – the idea that the UK would follow evolving EU rules in an area indefinitely – and that any decision to align would be made in parliament, they added. Nor was the party saying it would rejoin the customs union or single market.
Stella Creasy, one of Labour’s more outspoken MPs in favour of closer relationships with the EU, and chair of the labour movement for Europe, the fastest growing party affiliate, reacted positively to Starmer’s comments, tweeting: “Divergence means more paperwork for British business – we should be reducing red tape and increasing access for trade and jobs not increasing it and making it harder for our economy to grow.”
Starmer’s comments were made at an event alongside the Norwegian prime minister, Jonas Gahr Støre, in answer to a question by John McTernan, a former senior Downing Street aide to Tony Blair.
McTernan said he had asked the question because he was interested in the answer from both Starmer and the PM of Norway, another country outside the EU but with a close relationship.
“Actually, Rishi Sunak yesterday aligned UK policy on internal combustion cars to the EU, so surely sauce for the goose is sauce for the gander,” he said referring to the prime minister’s move to back the ban on the sale of new petrol and diesel cars in the UK from 2030 to 2035, which brings the UK in line with countries such as France and Germany.