Keir Starmer has finally launched Labour's vision of Brexit as he rules out any plans to take Britain back into the European Union.
The Labour leader has broken his silence on the matter after facing a wrath of calls from Labour heavyweights in recent weeks, urging him to begin to set out what the party stands for under his leadership.
“I want to make Brexit work,” he told the BBC during a round of broadcast interviews.
“We want to go forwards, not backwards.
"This is not about rejoining. It is not about going back into the single market or customs union. We have left the EU, there is no case for returning.
“What we can’t do is reopen all those arguments, all those divisions, which caused so much anguish over past years."
Mr Starmer will set out his five point plan to 'Make Brexit Work' at the Centre for European Reform. He believes it will "remove some of the [trade] barriers" that are currently holding Britain back.
Last week Tony Blair said Mr Starmer must set out a clear policy agenda to win the next general election.
He said at the future of Britain conference organised by his own institute: “I want to build a strong policy agenda and then it is there for reasonable people, whether they are Conservative Party, Labour Party, Lib Dems, whatever, to take it up and at least you get people debating how to change the country in a way that bears some resemblance to the reality of the challenge we face.”
“Sometimes politics isn’t about just going with the flow, it is about resisting it as well,” Mr Blair told the conference.
In a speech later today, Mr Starmer will vow to take steps to resolve border issues in Northern Ireland.
Using the moment to criticise Boris Johnson's premiership, Mr Starmer said the PM had been using Brexit to stoke political divisions across the UK.
"The missing ingredient is any trust in our Prime Minister,” he told ITV News during a round of broadcast interviews.
“We would make much better negotiators, we would be much more trusted on the international stage. Trust is the ingredient we need in all of these negotiations. It is not there.
“The UK prime minister used to be the honest broker in Northern Ireland, whichever political party they were in. That has been lost with this Prime Minister.
“What Boris Johnson is doing is using Brexit to stoke up the old divisions.”
