Starmer to set out Labour’s Brexit policy, saying rejoining single market would ‘be recipe for more division’ – live

Will Quince, the minister for children and families, was the government’s spokesperson on the morning interview round. He was there to talk about the plan to relax nursery staff-to-child ratios, but inevitably he spent much of his morning talking about Chris Pincher, and Boris Johnson’s handling of the umpteenth sleaze scandal to hit his premiership.

As Peter Walker reports in his story, Pincher said that he had been given a “categorical assurance” by No 10 that Johnson was not aware of any “specific” allegation made against Pincher when he appointed him to the post of deputy chief whip earlier this year. But he would not comment on say whether Johnson might have known of general allegations about Pincher’s conduct at the time of the reshuffle, saying that he had not asked that question when he was briefed before he took to the airwaves.

It has been widely reported that Johnson did know there were concerns about Pincher’s conduct when he made the appointment, and that this was one reason why Pincher only got the deputy job, not the full chief whip promotion he had been expecting.

Here are some more lines on this topic from Quince’s interviews.

• Quince said he could not imagine that Johnson used to refer to Pincher as “Pincher by name, pincher by nature”. Dominic Cummings, the PM’s former chief adviser, made this claim at the weekend. Asked if it was true, Quince replied:

I think that quote came from Dominic Cummings, who’s not someone who I give a huge amount of credibility to, given past experience.

Asked if he could imagine the PM using this phrase, Quince told LBC: “No, I can’t.”

Here is Cummings’ tweet.

• But Quince also said that, before his media round today, he had not specifically asked No 10 if the claim about Johnson describing the MP as “Pincher by name, pincher by nature” was true. No 10 has not denied that Johnson used this expression.

• Quince claimed it would have been wrong for Johnson not to appoint Pincher to the deputy chief whip post on the basis of unproven rumour. He said:

I think these cases are hard because, like any professional organisation, you can’t act on rumour or gossip. As you know, in Westminster there is a lot of rumour or gossip.

But Johnson was not being asked at the time of the reshuffle to punish Pincher on the basis of unfounded allegation; he was just being urged by some colleagues not to promote him. In another tweet on this matter Cummings from last week claimed that it was routine for matters like this to be taken into account during a reshuffle.

• Quince refused to say whether he himself had heard rumours about Pincher’s conduct before his resignation last week. Asked repeatedly about this on the Today programme, Quince just said:

There are lot of rumours and gossip around Westminster… If I had a pound for every rumour that I’d heard about another MP, then I’d be a very wealthy man.

• Quince rejected suggestions that he, a junior minister, was doing the broadcast round before cabinet minsters were refusing to appear. When this was put to him he replied:

I was booked in four days ago, in fact five days ago I think it was, to talk about a very important childcare announcement.

The claim that cabinet ministers are refusing to defend the PM on the airwaves is in the Daily Telegraph. In their story Camilla Turner and Dominic Penna report:

One [cabinet source[ told The Telegraph that it was likely that junior ministers would be “wheeled out” on broadcast interviews as their more senior cabinet colleagues were likely to try to “pull rank” and refuse to go on the airwaves.

“Most have done their fair share of excruciating interviews already – you might discover more with dentist appointments or bereavements this week,” they said.

Here is an example of one of those “excruciating interviews”, given by Thérèse Coffey, the work and pensions secretary, yesterday.

Boris Johnson still has questions to answer over the appointment of Chris Pincher as Conservative deputy chief whip, Labour has said. My colleague Peter Walker has the story here.

Good morning. In his speech to the Labour party conference last year Keir Starmer summed up his party’s new Brexit policy by saying he wanted to “Make Brexit work”. It was a clever slogan because it simultaneously signalled Labour’s acceptance of Brexit (in the hope of confounding Tory claims that he wanted to reverse it), while simultaneously branding it a failing policy (a propositon that has the support of almost all remainers, and an increasing number of leavers too). As with many Labour initiatives, though, there was little follow-up, and over the next few months we heard very little about the “Make Brexit work” approach.

Tonight that will change when Starmer gives a speech fleshing out more details of this policy. In it, Starmer will confirm that a Labour government would not rejoin the single market or the customs union, or reintroduce free movement for EU citizens. According to a preview of his remarks in the Financial Times, he will say that to do so would just be “a recipe for more division”. He will say:

Nothing about revisiting those rows will help stimulate growth or bring down food prices or help British business thrive in the modern world — it would simply be a recipe for more division.

There are many on the left who will find such a firm rejection of the notion of rejoining the single market disappointing. Even Daniel Hannan, the Tory peer and ultra-Brexiter, was much more positive about the single market in a recent Sunday Telegraph column in which he said it would have been much better for the UK to remain in it. Like Starmer, though, Hannan concluded it was now too late to revisit that decision.

According to the FT, Starmer will also use his speech to give details of how Labour would make Brexit work. He will propose: a veterinary agreement with the EU to reduce agrifood checks; a mobility deal to cut the need for visas for artists touring in Europe and people making short business trips; mutual recognition of product standards and professional qualifications; alignment on data adequacey rules; and more co-operation on justice and police matters including a new “security pact”.

Here is the agenda for the day.

10.30am: Anas Sarwar, the Scottish Labour leader, gives a speech in Westminster on Labour plans for reform of Scotland’s place in the UK.

11.30am: Downing Street holds a lobby briefing.

12.30pm: Jeremy Hunt, the Conservative former foreign secretary and potential future leadership candidates, takes part in a Q&A at the Institute for Government.

After 3.30pm: Boris Johnson is expected to make a statement to MPs about the Nato, G7 and Commonwealth summits.

5pm: Angela Rayner, Labour’s deputy leader, speaks about the “representation gap” at Westminster at an IPPR event.

Evening: Keir Starmer delivers a speech on Brexit to the Centre for European Reform.

Also, Liz Truss, the foreign secretary, is attending the Ukraine Recovery Conference in Lugano, Switzerland.

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