Sir Keir Starmer said he wanted to move on from the toxic battles of Brexit but the message had clearly not reached Boris Johnson, architect of Britain’s exit from the EU. Starmer, he said, had shown himself to be “the orange ball-chewing manacled gimp of Brussels”.
Although the UK prime minister is facing a backlash from his predecessor Johnson and other Eurosceptics over his “landmark” reset deal with the EU, Starmer and his officials insisted they had presided over successful negotiations, leaving Britain better off and more secure.
The accord unveiled on Monday was the result of months of secret talks, as both sides attempted to navigate political rapids to repair post-Brexit relations in the new era of global insecurity ushered in by Donald Trump’s return to the White House.