Mark Drakeford has defended the speech made by UK Labour leader Sir Keir Starmer where he said the United Kingdom would not rejoin the European single market or the customs union if Labour returned to power. Mr Drakeford, who campaigned for Wales to remain the EU, told the Senedd "the world has moved on".
Mr Starmer has been criticised for not being willing to make the argument for remaining outside the EU but re-joining the single market. Other countries, like Norway, are part of the single market while not being EU members. Labour MP Rosie Duffield shared a clip of Sir Sir Keir's speech saying "not in my name", Labour's London mayor Sadiq Khan has called for the UK to re-join the single market and Guardian columnist Simon Jenkins described the Labour leader's stance as "a mouse of a policy".
Instead, Mr Starmer said that he had other proposals to "make Brexit work" and claimed that re-joining the single market, which would allow UK businesses to trade freely in Europe again but also allow the free movement of people, would revisit "arguments of the past".
