Labour has said that the party’s international trade secretary spokesman, Barry Gardiner, “fully supports” the party’s Brexit policy, after it emerged that he had described one of Keir Starmer’s six tests for judging the final deal as “bollocks”.



Shortly after Gardiner apologised for claiming the Good Friday agreement was a “shibboleth”, whose importance was being exaggerated, a fresh recording emerged of the same private meeting in Brussels.

Starmer, the party’s Brexit spokesman, has repeatedly demanded that any deal achieves “the exact same benefits” as the current relationship with the European Union. It was one of six tests set a year ago, just before article 50 was triggered, setting the negotiations in progress.

Gardiner is recorded ridiculing the proposal. “It’s bollocks. Always has been bollocks” – and goes on to dismiss the whole strategy of the six tests.

“We know very well that we cannot have the exact same benefits. And it would have made sense, because it was the Tories that said they were going to secure the exact same benefits, and our position should have been precisely to say: ‘They have said that they will secure the exact same benefits and we are going to hold them to that standard.’”

He is also heard questioning the value of the “meaningful vote” on the deal that Labour MPs fought for, and saying, “any politician who tells you what’s going to happen … around that final deal is lying to you”.

The comments were regarded by some in the shadow cabinet as a deliberate attempt to wreck Labour’s carefully negotiated position on Brexit.

Starmer was furious, and complained to Jeremy Corbyn, having already raised objections to the “shibboleth” remarks. Corbyn later said his office had “had a conversation” with Gardiner.

A spokesman said on Tuesday, “Labour has set six tests for the final Brexit deal. Those include holding the government to its own commitment to deliver the same benefits as the single market and customs union. We have been clear that, if those tests are not met, Labour will not back it in parliament. Barry Gardiner fully supports that position.”

Gardiner then pours scorn on the idea of holding a “meaningful vote” in parliament on the final deal – Labour’s proudest achievement during the passage of the bill.

“You tell me what a meaningful vote is? Is a meaningful vote one where you have alternatives and you reject one and you opt for the other. If so, what are the alternatives? … What we’re going to have is, at best, clarity about the divorce settlement.”

The remarks underlined concerns about how the party will handle the vote, expected in the autumn, after the shadow foreign secretary, Emily Thornberry, appeared to suggest the deal would be so vague Labour could back it.

Gardiner suggested that if parliament voted against the deal, the most likely result would be the downfall of Theresa May, but even that would not resolve anything.

“What is the new prime minister, the new leader of the Conservative party going to be able to do as a result of that parliamentary vote? Do they go back and try to renegotiate a different deal in Europe? Well there’s no time for that. Do they hold a general election?”

Labour has not formally addressed the question of what should happen if the deal is unacceptable to the Commons.

Corbyn sacked Owen Smith as shadow Northern Ireland secretary last month after he publicly broke with Labour’s policy to advocate a referendum on the final Brexit deal.

Smith said, “Barry’s not talking bollocks when he says that Brexit cannot deliver the exact same benefits as we currently enioy. Of course it can’t. That’s why it’s so wrong for Labour to merely try and water down Brexit. It will make our country and our constituents worse off and it will jeopardise peace in Northern Ireland.”

Earlier on Tuesday, as dignitaries gathered in Northern Ireland on Tuesday to mark the peace deal’s 20th anniversary, Gardiner apologised for remarks that emerged earlier, about the “shibboleth” of the Good Friday agreement, saying, “I am deeply sorry that my informal remarks in a meeting last month have led to misunderstanding.”

He apologised in particular for the use of the word “shibboleth”, which he acknowledged “gave the impression that I thought the Good Friday agreement was in any way outdated or unimportant. I absolutely do not.”

Corbyn was also forced to repeat his commitment to ensuring there was no hard border. “There must be no return to a hard border between north and south, and no return to the horrors of the Troubles. All of us on both sides of the Irish Sea have a responsibility to maintain hope for the future.”

Marking the anniversary, Corbyn paid tribute to the architects of the agreement, which he called “a defining moment in Irish history, which allowed peace to prevail”.

Labour MP Chris Leslie, who supports the Open Britain campaign against Brexit, said Gardiner had “trashed the central point of Keir Starmer’s Brexit policy – the pledge to vote against any final Brexit deal that didn’t offer ‘the exact same benefits’”.