“How is any of that a surrender?”
Priti Patel has been doing the media rounds this morning, and made a fool of herself attacking the benefits of Keir Starmer’s EU reset deal.
Appearing on BBC Breakfast, presenter Jon Kay listed the deal’s clear benefits and challenged the Brexiteer’s stance.
He said: “So we’re talking about shorter wait times at passport control, fewer deals getting food in and out of the country, lower prices in the supermarkets, easier for young people to live and study abroad. How is any of that a surrender?”.
Despite Keir Starmer having outlined the deal yesterday, Patel said: “First of all, where’s the detail on all of those points you have just made?”.
The shadow foreign secretary said she had read the government’s “propaganda and press releases yesterday making claims about lower prices for supermarkets”, before using it as a springboard to argue that the deal would harm British farmers.
Patel also claimed “that is actually going to put costs up, so that’s factually incorrect”.
The government’s new SPS deal will reduce border friction by scrapping the need for export certificates and checks on most plant and animal products.
Easing up the movement of goods will help to lower supermarket prices.
One X user reacted to Patel’s comments saying: “Well, well, well. The supermarkets say food prices could fall “significantly” as a result of the new deal between the UK and the EU. No wonder the Tory Party is against it.”
Patel also made a hyperbolic claim that the UK would now again be under the control of the European Court of Justice.
In another interview with Sky News’ Wilfred Frost, she said the government were not “upfront and honest” about their plans for the EU.
Frost responded: “They very clearly campaigned on resetting relations with the EU”, adding “In terms of ECJ oversight, I think it’s fair to say it’s only on food regulations.”
Patel claimed that enabling food products to be exported more freely was not a good thing and accused the government of watering down Brexit’s “red lines,” turning them into what she called “pink lines”…
Olivia Barber is a reporter at Left Foot Forward
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