A lawyer on GB News has called out David Lammy after the Deputy Prime Minister shifted blame onto Brexit for Britain’s economic woes.
Yesterday, Mr Lammy refused seven times to rule out backtracking on Brexit during an interview, insisting that the UK’s departure from Brussels “badly damaged our economy”.
His words have echoed those of his Chancellor, who similarly attempted to waggle her finger at the democratic decision to bow out of the bureaucratic bloc for her Treasury troubles ahead of the Budget.
Speaking with Martin Daubney, barrister and writer Steven Barrett took no prisoners as he lambasted Mr Lammy for his claim that rejoining the customs union would support economic growth.
“These are authoritarians who have absolutely zero respect for democracy,” Mr Barrett fumed.
“And just as the reasons they gave you for taking away jury trials were not true, just as everything else they say is not true, Brexit has not harmed the economy.
“So if you look at the economies of the UK, France and Germany, we all pootle along, growing at the same rate after Brexit.
“Then of course we all experienced Covid. We actually have the most negative impact from Covid out of the three. And it takes us slightly longer to recover than Germany and France.
The Justice Secretary cited the example of Turkey, whose customs union seemingly benefits them and achieves growth
|
PA/GB NEWS
“But once we’ve recovered, France and the UK carry on growing at the same rate and very quickly the sick man of Europe becomes Germany.
“So if Brexit is to blame for our woes, why on earth is Germany in such a terrible way?”
He added that, from his legal experience, Britain does not seem to have “really diverged from the EU in any significant way”.
“If you’re a Brexiteer, that should actually upset you because you know, if you wanted what you perceive as the benefits of Brexit, then you would diverge from EU law.
Darren Jones slapped Mr Lammy on the wrist for his comments
|
PA
“But we have not done that. We effectively run the EU legal system here and we’re doing absolutely everything we can to copy them.
“We’re copying their carbon border, we’re going to copy all their product regulations. We’re going to do that via a minister rather than via democracy, because as I said, these are authoritarians.
“These are not people who respect democracy. And we have a border in the Northern Irish Sea, which Governments don’t want to admit is there, so they’re going to keep us aligned to the EU.
“If you’re a very strong and emotional Remainer, you should be quite happy because you have all of what you perceive as the benefits of the EU membership and EU law, and you don’t have any of the costs.”
Despite promising voters that Labour would not perform a U-turn on matters of Brexit, Sir Keir Starmer’s Cabinet ministers have criticised the decision to leave the EU.
Yesterday, Mr Lammy was asked whether he hopes Britain will rejoin the customs union, the Deputy Prime Minister said: “That is not currently our policy. That’s not currently where we are.
“But you can see countries like Turkey with a customs union seemingly benefitting and seeing growth in their economy, and again, that’s self-evident.”
Sir Keir’s Chief Secretary Darren Jones went on to slap Mr Lammy on the wrist for his comments, telling MPs in the Commons that Government policy will be announced in Parliament, not “on podcasts”.