Published on 19th March 2026 – my comments as published by the Daily Express on 19th March 2026 within the article that is headlined as pictured
Rachel Reeves gave her Mais lecture on Tuesday 17th March 2026 promising regulatory alignment with the EU as the norm rather than the exception.
That is both a major re-writing of Labour policy on Brexit, a departure from the content of the 2024 General Election manifesto, and an erasure of Starmer’s Red Lines.
Starmer repeated those Red Lines as recently as December.[1]
Reeves’ speech came as a surprise compared to the version trailed by government sources beforehand.[2]
That means that the speech as delivered did not have the approval of Number 10. Reeves has deceived Number 10 about what she was going to say. She has gone rogue in setting out a new policy apparently without discussion in Cabinet or with the Prime Minister.
This looks like a brazen and desperate attempt to reposition herself and to stay in post as and when Starmer is defenstrated. Chummying up to Starmer’s possible successors who may not remember that there ever were any Brexit Red Lines is not just self-serving. It is a rank betrayal of the Prime Minister.
On Wednesday 18th Angela Rayner throws her hat into the ring for being that new Prime Minister. Happenstance? Circumstance? Surely Enemy Action, and coordinated between Reeves and Rayner. Rayner becomes Prime Minister and turns on the spending taps even wider; Reeves stays in Number 11 Downing Street trying to make out it is all being done with the acme of financial prudence.
In the same movement Reeves has virtually guaranteed the kind of wipe-out for Labour in the May elections that would unseat the Prime Minister, and clear the pathway for a successor.
The Prime Minister has repeatedly been warned that crossing the Brexit Red Lines would be electoral suicide in the Red Wall areas. Now his closest lieutenant has crossed the Red Lines for him, and handed him the pistol with which to shoot himself after a catastrophe in the May elections.
That cannot be allowed to stand. It would be a betrayal of the United Kingdom’s democratic system to allow any cabinet minister to reformulate national policy at the drop of a hat and with the prolongation of their own career at the forefront of their calculations.
Reeves has knifed the Prime Minister in the back, and Starmer must now knife Rachel Reeves in the front.
He has to sack her.
[1] https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/keir-starmer-wes-streeting-cabinet-health-secretary-prime-minister-b2889005.html accessed on 18 March 2026
[2] https://www.ajbell.co.uk/news/articles/uk-chancellor-rachel-reeves-prepares-commit-ai-drive accessed on 18 March 2026