Luke Chiverton

For my sins, I watched Keir Starmer at the Montreal Global Progress Action Summit on Saturday (via YouTube). What he said was there is a “lot more common ground than you might think” between his party and the EU. He referenced labour market rules and workers’ rights, product standards, and environmental standards. He insisted there was no need to join the EEA (the single market) as Norway had done. His implication was maybe a Labour government could secure a better trade deal with the EU because its values were closer to those of the EU than those of a Tory government. Which may be a statement of the obvious - except that Boris Johnson used to say all the time that the UK was unlikely to diverge fundamentally from EU standards any time soon. When I heard Starmer at the weekend I thought his argument was pretty lame that a Labour government would by dint of being Labour secure an improved trade deal. Which is what I thought when Johnson said that kind of thing about trying to soften the border he created in the Irish Sea between Northern Ireland and GB. In neither case did I think they were taking dictation from Brussels.

🏴󠁧󠁢󠁳󠁣󠁴󠁿➡️🏴󠁧󠁢󠁥󠁮󠁧󠁿 PGMOL is pleased to announce that Bobby Madden will join the National Group of referees from the 2022/23 season - transferring from the Scottish FA following his relocation to England this summer.