​For Sunak, read Starmer - Angus Robertson

​At a dinner in 2002, 12 years after Margaret Thatcher left office, she was asked what her greatest achievement was. “Tony Blair and New Labour,” was her reply.

Britain's opposition Labour Party leader Keir Starmer speaks at the Queen Elizabeth II Conference Centre yesterday

​It seems, by her own metric, Thatcher is still making great achievements today, having won round another Labour leader to her vision.

Indeed, Keir Starmer’s comments in praise of one of the country’s most callous Prime Ministers ever show, yet again, how picking between the Tories and Labour is a near-impossible task.

This column need not recount the litany of damage in Scotland and the UK left in Thatcher’s wake. Opportunity squandered by reactionary decisions that broke too many communities.

Of course, there is an issue on which both Tory PM Sunak and Starmer are even more Thatcherite than Thatcher. While not a Europhile, at least Thatcher recognised the necessity of European Union membership. Now, Starmer is as ardent a Brexiteer as Sunak, with his spokesperson again confirming that Labour will not rejoin the Single Market or Customs Union or accept freedom of movement.

Starmer’s only critique of our departure from the EU is that the Tories have not been able to ‘realise the possibilities of Brexit’. As we all know, there are zero major positive possibilities from Brexit.

Starmer will say and do anything to get elected. Indeed, he said he was giving his party ‘shock therapy’ to move it ‘back towards voters’. With his comments, I suspect many Labour members may be shocked enough to take their votes elsewhere.