Baroness Kate Hoey: Keir Starmer and the Labour party soft on Union

The Northern Ireland-born former Labour peer said Sir Keir’s siding with Brussels against the government’s new bill showed that “he has reverted to Labour’s love-in with the EU”.

She told the News Letter: “His automatic support for the EU and opposition to sorting out the protocol will prove once again to Labour Brexit voters that it is an unpatriotic party and soft on the Union.”

Referring to ‘Red Wall’ pro-Brexit Labour seats that fell to the Tories in 2019, Baroness Hoey added: “This will definitely help to stabilise the Conservative vote in those areas.”

Last week the Labour leader declined to say if he was pro-Union on Northern Ireland.

Earlier yesterday Foreign Secretary Liz Truss said there was “absolutely no reason” for the European Union to retaliate against the UK after plans to change core elements of the protocol caused outrage in Brussels and capitals across the bloc.

Ireland’s Foreign Affairs Minister Simon Coveney had warned the UK government’s move could “destabilise” the situation in Northern Ireland and was undermining the work that led to the Brexit agreement with the EU.

The UK faces renewed legal action from Brussels after the move to override large parts of the international deal which was struck over Northern Ireland’s post-Brexit trading arrangements.

But Ms Truss told Times Radio: “Our solution doesn’t make the EU any worse off. We continue to protect the single market, we’re supplying the EU with data, we’ve got strong enforcement to make sure companies aren’t violating the rules. So there is absolutely no reason why the EU should react in a negative way to what we’re doing.”

The UK has argued that the measures to remove checks on goods and animal and plant products travelling from Great Britain to Northern Ireland are necessary to safeguard the Belfast Agreement and peace and stability.

Unionists oppose the imposition of checks between Great Britain and Northern Ireland in order to keep a land open border with the Republic.