Why Won't Davey Say His Party Wants To Rejoin EU?

Brexit is the elephant in the room of British politics”, Sir Ed Davey told the Liberal Democrats’ spring conference in York two months ago. He said that neither the Conservatives nor Labour wanted to talk about the costs of leaving the EU.

- JOHN RENTOUL

He said it was an elephant that the Lib Dems “always point to, even though other parties daren’t even whisper its name”. Yet when Ed Balls, the former shadow chancellor moonlighting as a presenter of Good Morning Britain, asked him about it, Sir Ed proved reluctant to talk about it.

Balls asked him if he would push Sir Keir Starmer, the Labour leader, to reverse Brexit as part of a deal in the event of a hung parliament. The Lib Dem leader said that, “at the moment”, rejoining the EU “is not the issue; the issue is rebuilding trust with our European friends and neighbours”.

He resisted several attempts by Balls and Susannah Reid, his copresenter, to accept that Lib Dem policy, as spelt out on the party’s website, is “ultimately” to rejoin the EU. So what is going on?