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Keir Starmer's Brexit position could cost Labour the next election
After his conference outbursts, how does his argument for staying in the EU stand up, asks JENNY PEARSON
Keir Starmer delivers a speech at Labour Conference 2018

Because of their trade union education and long parliamentary and internationalist experiences, you’d have no qualms about sending Jeremy Corbyn and John McDonnell in to negotiate with the most unscrupulous, unelected, neoliberal power bloc in the world, the EU.

We’d be foolish to think that Keir Starmer would be a reliable pair of hands to do so. After his Labour Party speech I thought that if he went up against Barnier he would get eaten alive and very quickly run back saying that a second referendum, with Remain as the objective, would be the only viable alternative.

While the party leadership and major unions like my union Unite are clear that we are leaving the EU and should not jeopardise this or rerun the referendum, Starmer doesn’t seem to understand the message. We are not for turning. We are leaving the EU on March 29 2019. To argue to stay in or prevaricate about it will lose us the election.

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