Keir Starmer is plotting to use the tenth anniversary of the EU referendum to launch a new push to reverse Brexit.
Diplomatic sources told the Mail the Prime Minister is planning a new ‘summit’ with European Commission chief Ursula von der Leyen close to the anniversary of the referendum vote on June 23.
The two leaders spokes by phone on Wednesday night, when No 10 said they ‘discussed their shared ambition to further strengthen the partnership between the UK and the European Union‘.
The call came just hours after Sir Keir delivered his most pro-EU remarks since the election, in which he claimed the benefits of aligning with Brussels were ‘too big to ignore’.
Ministers had originally planned a low-key meeting with Brussels to sign off details of a food and farming agreements signed last year.
But the PM said he now wanted to be much more ‘ambitious’, claiming that getting closer to the single market was ‘hugely in our economic interest’.
Critics accused Sir Keir, who previously pushed for a second referendum, of plotting a new Brexit betrayal.
Kemi Badenoch warned that the PM’s track record in negotiating the controversial £35 billion deal to give away the Chagos Islands to Mauritius showed he was incapable of negotiating.
Close: Keir Starmer and Ursula von der Leyen say they have a ‘shared ambition’ to soften Brexit
The Tory leader said: ‘The PM needs to be clear what he is giving up and what he is negotiating.
‘We were very clear that we did not want to be paying any more money to the EU, we wanted control of our laws and our borders.
‘What changes is the PM making? Is he taking us back 10 years to start these wars all over again about what we’re going to be doing with the EU.
‘Every time he negotiates, Britain loses.’
Asked about Sir Keir’s plans, Mark Francois, chairman of the European Research Group of Conservative MPs, told the Mail: ‘Quelle surprise: “Mr Second Referendum” himself want to take us back into the EU – but now without risking a second vote, that he spent years calling for.
‘Instead, there will now likely be “enabling” legislation in next month’s Kings Speech, which would allow this Europhile Labour Government to take us back into the EU, one industrial or business sector at a time. They are gambling they can then “boil us like a frog” without anyone really noticing – which will prove to be a big mistake.’
Nigel Farage warned he would unpick any Brexit deal signed by Sir Keir if Reform win power, while Robert Jenrick said the PM was ‘trying to use the Iran crisis and his inability to do anything on it as a back door to pursue his longstanding ambition to get back into the single market, or as close to it as possible‘.
Cabinet Office minister Nick Thomas-Symonds, who has been leading talks with Brussels, said there had been ‘very significant progress’ but acknowledged that the UK would have to pay for access to the single market as well as following the EU’s rules.
‘I am very confident that we will get to an agreement… on youth mobility, emissions trading and indeed on the food and drink agreement,’ he told Politico’s Westminster Insider podcast.
He added: ‘We are at a moment when it is clearly in the interests of both the EU and the UK to have a close relationship.’
Former Labour cabinet minister David Miliband told BBC Radio Four’s Today programme that the government should seek a ‘dramatic’ improvement in relations with the EU.
‘We’ve got to take the sort of action that I think the Prime Minister was beginning to describe,’ he said.
‘That’s the starting point. It can’t be the ending point.’
