Keir Starmer is buying into Boris Johnson’s big economic lie over Brexit

Trade down 14 per cent, endless queues at Dover, exports strangled by red tape, rising costs to the consumer. You can’t make this work, and deep down the Labour leader should know that, argues James Moore

Freight and holiday traffic queues at the Port of Dover in Kent (PA Wire)

Wait, cautious Keir is talking Brexit? Is this a) because someone popped something in the Labour leader’s Monday morning coffee? Political courage pills? Or is it b) down to the fact that the economic damage is becoming so screamingly obvious that ignoring this Godzilla-level trade wrecker, and letting the Tories off the hook for it, makes him look like a bit of a berk?

Give yourself a gold star if you answered b).

Here’s the problem: Starmer’s Brexit speech still makes him look like a bit of a berk – unless, that is, the Labour leader is just being terribly dishonest. Not Boris Johnson-level dishonest, it’s true. But dishonest all the same – even if he believes it. The hard fact is that you can’t make Brexit work better when the whole project was built on a foundation of dishonesty and economy myth-making – something that is becoming clearer by the day.