Labour leader Sir Keir Starmer has been praised by Michel Barnier as a “European” as he added that the UK had seen “no added value” from leaving the European Union. This comes as former PM Boris Johnson praised Brexit on the third anniversary of the UK’s departure from the bloc, urging his Twitter followers to ignore Brexit “gloom-mongers”.
Now a backbench MP for Uxbridge and South Ruislip, Mr Johnson posted: “Time to turn the tables on the gloom-mongers, and exploit the benefits of Brexit. Remember that vaccine rollout! Happy Brexit Day!”
Former Belgian Prime Minister Guy Verhofstadt took an opposing stance to the anniversary, who suggested in an interview with LBC that the Russian invasion of Ukraine might not have happened without Brexit.
Earlier this week he also tweeted that it was his “dream” for the UK and Ukraine to both join the bloc in the next five years.
He told LBC: “Yeah, my dream was that I transmitted in a tweet yesterday was to say, let’s hope that Britain can rejoin and let’s hope that Ukraine can join and why not within five years?
“Maybe it’s a little bit optimistic concerning the UK, but my feeling is when the last time when I was in London, that for the first time in the public opinion in Britain, people understand that Brexit was a wrong choice and that it has done a lot of damage to Europe and certainly to the UK.”
Polling by Focaldata and Unherd have shown there is Brexit voting regret in all but three of the UK’s 650 parliamentary constituencies.
Out of the 10,000 people surveyed, there was only majority support for leaving in three areas of Lincolnshire – Louth and Horncastle, Boston and Skegness, and South Holland and the Deepings.
READ MORE: Boris insists it’s ‘time to turn tables on Brexit gloom-mongers’
“I think that Keir Starmer as many, many politicians, even in the Tory Party, know that to face some global challenges, we have to work at a European level.
“Even if UK or Norway or Switzerland… we need to work as a continent to face some global challenges. Better together than alone.”
The Labour leader has made it clear that his party would not pursue a policy of re-joining the EU.
