Sir Keir Starmer has been plotting to make Brexit a cornerstone of the next General Election campaign.
Labour was accused of adopting a risky strategy to thwart the rise of Reform UK after the Prime Minister blamed Nigel Farage for the small boats crisis and Britain’s financial woes.
Europe has played a major role in at least four national polls since 1997, prompting many to wonder if the public has a dose of Brexit fatigue.
However, Labour is not expected to make the campaign a question of rejoining the Brussels bloc.
“It isn’t about re-running the referendum and also I don’t think that’s what the public think we are saying,” a source told The i newspaper
“It is saying: if the country’s economy is less productive because of some of the trade barriers produced by Brexit, what are you going to do about it?
“We have got a closer relationship with the EU and we have also struck trade deals with India and the US that everyone said the UK would get [as a result of Brexit].
“It is about saying Brexit has a cost… but we are doing something about it.”
Despite Mr Farage playing no role in negotiating Boris Johnson’s Brexit deal, Labour hopes to tie the Reform UK leader to wider public sentiments about leaving the EU.
However, Mr Farage was himself critical of the way in which the Conservative Party handled Brexit.
Speaking in 2023, the Reform UK leader said: “We haven’t benefited from Brexit economically when we could have done.
“What Brexit has proved, I’m afraid, is that our politicians are about as useless as the commissioners in Brussels were. We have mismanaged this totally.”
However, pro-EU Labour MPs have been putting pressure on the Prime Minister to take a bolder approach.
Labour Movement for Europe chair Stella Creasy said: “Recognising just how damaging Brexit has been means we must also recognise the scale of the challenge to repair it – that means the case for building on the work to date.”
Sir Keir is also being urged to consider rejoining the EU by a growing number of Labour veterans, including Lord Kinnock and Andy Burnham.
Despite admitting that the strategy could shore up Labour’s predominantly pro-EU base, one polling guru expressed concerns about the plan backfiring.
More In Common’s Luke Tryl said: “Farage’s defence to this could be: ‘Well yeah, it hasn’t been a good Brexit because I wasn’t in charge, and if I get into power I will organise the type of Brexit that takes advantage of the new-found freedoms’. I actually think it’s quite a dangerous strategy from Labour.”
Sir Keir appeared to first unveil Labour’s new Brexit strategy at the 2025 Labour Party Conference.
During his keynote speech, the Prime Minister took aim at the architects of the Vote Leave campaign.
Sir Keir also appeared to blame Mr Farage for the Channel crossing crisis in a sit-down interview with GB News.
Despite pinning Britain’s economic difficulties on Brexit, EU member states have also struggled in recent years.
Britain’s GDP grew by 0.3 per cent in the second quarter of 2025, significantly higher than the 0.1 per cent Eurozone average.
Meanwhile, the Prime Minister’s small boats attack appears to have centred around the much-decried Dublin Convention.
Sir Keir, who supported a second referendum when serving as Jeremy Corbyn’s Shadow Chancellor, already fuelled fears from Eurosceptics after his reset deal earlier this year.
Mr Johnson warned Sir Keir’s EU reset makes Britain a rule-taking, fishermen-sacrificing, alignment-bound vassal state, adding Labour was opening the door to a borders “sell out” while contributing to Brussels’ pots.