A prominent europhile Labour MP has called for his party to campaign on a platform of rejoining the European Union — similar to the policy that lost the party the 2019 election.
Leeds Central MP Hilary Benn at a party conference in Brighton said that it was time for "a new relationship with the EU".
He said Labour should move "step by step towards rejoining" the bloc that 17.4 million Britons voted to leave in 2016. Benn stated that it was the UK's "destiny to be European".
"The only thing that is stopping us... is an absence of imagination and real passion in campaigning", Benn insisted, adding: "Let's just say it, Brexit is a mess".
"The truth is, bit by bit, the British people can see what is happening in front of their eyes — the queues, the shortages", Benn told delegates. "The threat to peace and security that a Labour government achieved after many years with the Northern Ireland agreement".
Earlier, Labour leader Sir Keir Starmer told the BBC's Andrew Marr that Prime Minister Boris Johnson's government should grant visas to 100,000 lorry drivers from the EU and elsewhere — when those countries are also experiencing a haulage labour shortage caused by the COVID-19 pandemic.
Outside his Brighton studio he was greeted by a three-strong demonstration by led by Steve Bray, a Welshman and former Liberal Democrat parliamentary candidate who has protested against Brexit outside parliament since 2017.
Starmer, then shadow Brexit secretary under leader Jeremy Corbyn, led the adoption of a policy of re-running the referendum at the September 2019 conference — a position which helped Johnson's Conservative Party to a landslide victory, taking dozens of seats from Labour in its Brexit-voting northern heartlands.
The shortage of licensed Heavy Goods Vehicle (HGV) drivers has seen wages in the low-paid haulage industry rise from £10.50 per hour to a £13.50 basic rate.
"I agree, lorry drivers deserve a pay rise", Benn conceded, but then complained there were not enough ballet dancers in the UK either.
"I thought I'd look at the shortage occupation list the day before yesterday and I found among many jobs ballerinas!", Benn exclaimed. "Do ballerinas not deserve a pay rise? In which case, why are they on the shortage occupation list?"
Benn's father was the late former cabinet minister and famous Labour left-winger Tony Benn, who opposed Britain's membership in the EU and its predecessor, the European Economic Community, until his death in 2014. Corbyn was a vocal eurosceptic until his election as leader in 2015.