So Labour's position on Europe has Mandelson at its centre:
The future shape of the UK-EU relationship under a Starmer government was discussed in early March at a two-day retreat for EU ambassadors at Stansted Park, an Edwardian stately home in West Sussex... Lord Peter Mandelson, the former EU trade commissioner and Labour cabinet minister, outlined in a keynote speech the party’s approach to Europe if it was to win power.
"Mandelson said the party leadership had to be very cautious in public about its red lines on the single market and customs union, but also said that privately there was more flexibility on areas like dynamic alignment with EU rules and submitting to the jurisdiction of the European Court of Justice,” said a person familiar with the contents of the speech. Mandelson said Labour might also look to deepen the relationship with a veterinary agreement and by relinking with the bloc’s carbon trading market in order to avoid frictions caused by the introduction of the EU’s new carbon tax in 2026.
And within a month of that meeting in 'early March', Labour was already struggling with how to present a 'de facto customs union by another name' as something else: (from
Archived FT story from 8 April)
[A] paper from the Eurasia Group political consultancy cited unnamed “senior Labour insiders” as saying the party would seek to revive a high-alignment deal, originally brokered by former prime minister Theresa May but rejected by parliament in 2019, in a bid to boost economic growth.
“[That] deal is a first-term ambition. A de facto customs union by another name. It is the first step of where we’d want to get to,” one of the insiders reportedly said, adding they were reflecting new internal thinking on the EU relationship within the Labour leadership. [...] Labour quickly denied the briefing...
I have a bad feeling that despite the superficial clarity of its 'red lines', Labour has not sidelined Brexit in the next election. It has merely presented its opponents with a more insidious line of attack: stealth re-entry into the EU.