BREXIT will be absolutely safe under a Labour government, Sir Keir Starmer vowed last night in his biggest plea yet for voters to trust him.
Pressed by Sun readers on his catalogue of u-turns, the wannabe PM promised there would be “no going back” into the EU if he walks into No10 next week.
The Tories have accused the one-time Remainer of plotting to tie us back into Brussels’ rules by stealth if handed a landslide on July 4.
But in a cast-iron pledge to the nation on a Never Mind The Ballots election special, Sir Keir said: “I wanted to remain but now we have left, there’s no going back.”
In our election showdown clash tonight:
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- Rishi Sunak claimed “Keir Starmer won't tell you what he's going to do” - because you won’t like it
- Keir Starmer was hammered by Sun readers over Jeremy Corbyn but heaped praise on Boris Johnson
- The Labour leader saw his plans to beat the small boats crisis blasted by hecklers
- Starmer insisted he will meet with JK Rowling to thrash out trans and gender rights in a bombshell statement
- Sunak claimed that he was one of the first to raise the alarm on Liz Truss's plans in 2022
You can watch the full show on the Sun's YouTube channel here.
Polls currently put the Labour chief on course to cruise into Downing Street with the largest victory in recent history.
It has stoked fears he could wield such a “supermajority” to reverse elements of the 2016 referendum - already admitting he wants a “closer” relationship with the bloc.
Put on the spot by a member of the audience that this was his true intention, Sir Keir told the crowd the deal Boris Johnson brokered in 2020 was “very botched”.
He went on: “If you talk to any business that’s trying to trade, they will tell you it’s not good enough.
“I think we can do more on defence and security, by the way, with our European partners.
Yet ruling out any bid to rejoin, he stressed: “But we’re not going back in. We’re not going back into the Single Market, the Customs Union. We’re not going back to freedom of movement.”
Sir Keir famously advocated for a second referendum while serving as Jeremy Corbyn’s Brexit spokesman.
He has since renounced his leftie predecessor and thrown him out of Labour, but is still dogged by his past support and making a string of Corbynite pledges to become leader.
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During his 30-minute grilling at Sun HQ last night, ex-lawyer Sir Keir made his most impassioned defence that he was “right to fight” Mr Corbyn from within.
He insisted he could fight “important battles” from the inside, adding: “I felt that on issues such as Brexit, which I thought were going to define us for decades to come, leaders are temporary, but political parties are permanent.
“But it was important to have a voice in the shadow cabinet, and it meant that I could challenge on anti-Semitism, and it meant that the Labour Party never veered from its position on things that were fundamentally important, like Nato.”
But he was pushed again on whether he was lying to the nation when he urged voters to back the radical left-wing manifesto he championed just five years ago.
Reader Nick Smart asked how the public knows whether Sir Keir is lying now, after he admitted knowing Labour couldn't win in 2019.
Sir Keir said: "We got it wrong in 2019. And I'm going to change this. I've had to be really tough to do that - to deliver.
"What I'm asking for now is the opportunity to pick the country up, which is as broken as my party was in 2019 and change it for the better."
Political Editor Harry Cole took Sir Keir to task over his declaration Mr Corbyn would have made a better PM than his mortal enemy Boris Johnson.
Mortal enemy
Grilled on how Red Jez would have handled Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, the Labour boss had some rare warm words for BoJo.
He said: “Let me do something I don’t do very often, and praise Boris Johnson.”
He went on: “I was leader of the opposition, and I said, we will support the government. And so there’s been unity in parliament from the outbreak of that conflict and Russia aggression there.
"And I thought that was important, Boris Johnson thought it was important, because I think we both took the view that the only winner, if there was a split in our politics here in the UK, would be Putin. He wanted to see division in other countries, and we didn’t allow him.”
But Sir Keir was on a sticky wicket over his plans to stop small boat crossings as many readers gave his plan to process illegal migrants short shrift.
He said: “There are 50,000 people not being processed, if we carry on with Rishi Sunak as prime minister it will get to 100k by the end of the year.”
Yet put to him that the current asylum grant rate was 65 per cent - meaning tens of thousands of hotel migrants would get to stay - Sir Keir said: “The odds at the moment are 100 per cent.”
But when vowing to scrap the “expensive gimmick” Rwanda plan, a reader called Boris yelled out: “Where are you going to send them!”
And on his awkward trans positions - having taken flak from JK Rowling on her perceived lack of support for women’s rights - he promised to speak to the Harry Potter author.
He said: “She’s made some really important points. I’d welcome that discussion, because I do think that we’ve made huge progress on women’s rights under Labour governments, and equality, massive progress.
“There’s more work to be done if we are privileged to come in to serve this country and I want to make sure that we can bring people together.”
