What Britain’s Labour Party thinks of Europe

RACHEL REEVESEUEU can surprise visitors by her coldness towards Europe. At a recent dinner the shadow chancellor was asked when Britain would rejoin the European Union. A naive question, met with a blunt response. “No, no, no! You don’t get it!” she said, according to one who was there. Ms Reeves voted to remain in 2016; in the deadlock that followed she reluctantly supported a second referendum. But, she told her fellow diners, her constituents in Leeds had seen local factories advertising for workers in Poland; lifelong Labour voters had come out for Brexit in their droves. “The constitutional question is closed.”Plenty think that is just a practised feint from a former junior chess champion. Sir Keir Starmer, the Labour leader, has packed his shadow cabinet with second-referendists. Many Labour voters would cheer a reintegration with the : 78% of them think divorce was a mistake. Brexit is a drag on growth, the party’s proclaimed number-one priority. In opposition, the Labour Party is proposing only modest tweaks to Britain’s trade deal. If elected later this year, will they not yearn for Brussels’s embrace?