Labour and Reform trade blows over Brexit on Leave vote anniversary

Press Association Political Staff

Labour has branded Nigel Farage a “threat to national security” over his stance on Europe while the Reform UK leader claimed the Government had failed to deliver on the “freedom” offered by Brexit a decade ago.

On the tenth anniversary of the vote to leave the EU, Cabinet Office minister Nick Thomas-Symonds said the prominent Leave campaigner had a worldview which was “sympathetic” to Russian President Vladimir Putin.

Meanwhile, Mr Farage accused political leaders including former prime minister Boris Johnson, Tory leader Kemi Badenoch and Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer of failing to understand the “forgotten places” across the country which had wanted a “fairer deal” for the UK.

A debate over the future of the UK-EU relationship has reignited in recent weeks after the outgoing Prime Minister made closer ties with Brussels a key pillar of his “reset” after Labour’s electoral drubbing in May.

Andy Burnham, the man who many see as a prime minister-in-waiting after his Makerfield by-election win and Sir Keir’s resignation as party leader, has pledged not to “re-run” old Brexit arguments.

He has sought to play down the prospect of reversing the 2016 referendum but has said he would like to see the UK back in the EU within his lifetime.

EU relations minister Mr Thomas-Symonds, who is speaking at an event held by the UK in a Changing Europe think tank on Tuesday, will argue that a hard-headed relationship with Europe is needed to protect British homes in a turbulent world.

He launched an attack on Mr Farage over the Reform leader’s previous remarks about Ukraine, accusing him of having “consistently supported Russia, and tried to pretend that our interests could ever align with a dictator’s”.

Writing in the Telegraph ahead of the event, he said: “From declaring in 2014 that ‘I think the European Union, frankly, does have blood on its hands in the Ukraine’, and that he didn’t want a ‘European foreign policy’, to suggesting in 2024 that Nato and the EU’s ‘eastward expansion’ gave a reason for Putin to ‘go to war’.

“His rationale for doing so, it seems, has been to ultimately undermine the favourability of the European Union. So consumed with being anti-Europe, engrossed by an ideological necessity for separation, he has chosen to fall on one side of a worldview. The wrong side.”

He added: “Allowing a worldview sympathetic to Putin to hold the balance of power would be an unprecedented threat to national security.”

Mr Farage, who is MP for Clacton, said Westminster had repeatedly failed to listen to people who had asked “to take control of our borders, take control of our laws, and deliver the growth they so desperately needed”.

In a post on his Substack due to go live at 10am, he says: “I’ve always said that Brexit is a necessary step towards saving the country. But on its own, it’s nowhere near sufficient. It needs a government that will deliver on the freedom it gave us to drag our heads back above the water. It needs a government that will listen.

“The anger and frustration felt by the British people, the anger and distrust in the Westminster class, is a result of the utter failure of that same political class to pay attention to what it was told.

“To take control of our borders, take control of our laws, and deliver the growth they so desperately needed. These desires were ignored. And so was the optimism of the 2016 vote.”

He said neither the Tories nor Labour were “up to the challenge” of delivering on the promise of the 2016 referendum.

Liberal Democrat leader Sir Ed Davey urged Mr Burnham, who is widely seen as the frontrunner to replace Sir Keir, to rejoin the single market.

Despite seeking closer ties with Brussels, the Prime Minister has three “red lines” – returning to the customs union or the single market and allowing free movement – which he promised at the 2024 election would not be crossed.

Sir Ed said: “This is a defining moment. If Andy Burnham wants to deliver the change the Labour Party promised, he needs to vote for our amendment to get Britain into the single market.

“This is the single most effective step we can take to turbocharge growth, tackle the cost-of-living crisis and fix the UK’s broken relationship with Europe.”

Elsewhere, a UK-EU summit which had been due to take place on July 22 was thrown into doubt after Sir Keir’s announcement on Monday that he would stand down.

Amid turmoil in Westminster, the European Commission said it was “reassessing” whether the meeting would still go ahead.

Sir Ed had earlier described the uncertainty around the summit as “the cost of chaos for Britain”.