Rishi Sunak and Kier Starmer ‘perpetuating Brexit lies’ – Plaid leader
Prime Minister Rishi Sunak and Labour leader Keir Starmer are both guilty of “perpetuating Brexit lies,” Plaid’s leader in Westminster has said.
At Prime Minister’s Questions today, Plaid Cymru’s Westminster leader, Liz Saville Roberts MP, criticised the UK Government’s economic credibility given the Prime Minister’s refusal to consider rejoining the single market.
This comes after a Bloomberg interview last week, in which the International Trade Secretary Kemi Badenoch disputed the Office of Budget Responsibility’s March forecast that UK trade would be 15% lower in the long-term due to Brexit.
Ahead of next week’s Autumn Statement, Ms Saville Roberts told Mr Sunak that it is “a fact” that Britain’s “woeful economic prospects are worsened by being outside the world’s largest trade bloc”.
She criticised both Mr Sunak and Labour leader Keir Starmer for undermining their own claims to economic credibility by “perpetuating Brexit lies”.
Liz Saville Roberts MP said: “The Prime Minister is struggling to rebuild the Tories’ ruined economic credibility after his predecessor scorned the Office for Budget Responsibility [OBR].
“But in a Bloomberg interview just last week his trade secretary disputed OBR forecasts that trade will be 15% lower because of Brexit.
“Britain’s economic prospects are worsened by being outside the world’s largest trade bloc. That is a fact.
“So who does he agree with? The OBR, or his Tory minister?”
In response, Mr Sunak spoke about future trade deals.
‘Brexit lies’
Speaking after the session, Ms Saville Roberts added: “Rishi Sunak is desperate to prove that he is different to his economically reckless predecessor Liz Truss, yet refuses to take pragmatic steps to boost the economy by reducing trade barriers.
“He could have showed that the era of pandering to the extremists of the European Research Group is over, but his reply only reinforced that he remains as beholden to the ERG as his predecessors.
“Both Rishi Sunak and Keir Starmer are complicit in perpetuating Brexit lies due to a lack of political backbone. For the sake of the economy – particularly for us in Wales – both Tory and Labour politicians need to start being honest and recognise the need to rejoin the single market.”
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Germany trades much better than us and that’s from inside the EU. Gove lies repeatedly about having £800 billion in new trade deals, but they are just rollovers of existing EU deals, often at a less advantageous outcome. The only new trade deal is Australia/New Zealand. Just today Sunak was in Parliament saying that Welsh farmers were looking forward to exporting lamb. To where? Certainly not to Australia/New Zealand to compete against their much cheaper product which benefits from economies of scale and transport. And they have tied up the far east already. So good luck with that. On the… Read more »
Wales voted for Brexit. plaid being remainers is why they don’t win power.
Sorry mate but you are now out of touch with what the people want now – at least 57% want to rejoin – and how our economy is tanking outside the EU. The evidence is overwhelming – Brexit was a stupid stupid idea. Warped ideology must now be replaced by common sense. We must rejoin for a more prosperous future for our children.
Spot on. Both Labour and the Tories are terrified to mention Brexit even though the economy will be 15% worse off because of it. The Tories keep telling us that Brexit is done – when, as the Northern Island protocol shows, it clearly isn’t. Starmer, on the other hand, avoids anything controversial like the plague and has closed down all discussions about Brexit choosing to settle on the Hard Tory Brexit deal rather than consider the possibility of opening discussions on the Single Market. This is shameful because it is one thing to accept the Brexit vote but there was… Read more »
Well done Liz, it is important to keep the message of the ongoing harm Brexit is doing to the UK economy alive.
Keir Starmer is perpetuating Brexit falsehoods soley to gain back those Northern English red wall seats. Wales is not even on his radar.
Sadly true. He (starmer) is now even saying that he’ll refuse to let another scottish independence referendum go ahead even if the scottish govt win’s its case in the supreme court.
If she is right about Britain’s economic prospects are worsened by being outside the world’s largest trade bloc (which may well be correct) so how does LSR explain how Wales economic prospects would be better as an independent nation being outside our largest trade bloc which is England.
By joining the SM.
Who said we would stop trading with England? Presently, as you know, we are not in the EU, so there is no reason why we shouldn’t continue to trade freely with our neighbour. In the future I suspect all the newly independent countries of the British isles would aim to rejoin the EU together.
No peace for the wicked…that’s the stuff Ms S-R…
Well said. Again Liz Saville-Roverts shows what good MP should be doing.