Rachel Reeves admitted that she wishes Brexit had never happened as she began her new drive to bring the UK closer to the European Union again.
The Chancellor said she voted Remain a decade ago and would do so again, and regrets the fact that her side did not win.
She claimed she did not want another referendum, saying it would be divisive.
However, critics claim her new policy of making much of the economy follow strict Brussels rules again will bring Britain back into the EU by the back door.
Ms Reeves, who visited Spain on Wednesday as her charm offensive with European leaders got underway, said in an interview with The Economist: ‘I believe that closer alignment, better trade relations with the EU is in our national interest.’
She again mentioned disputed research which claims Britain’s departure from the EU caused an 8 per cent ‘hit’ to GDP and went on: ‘At a time when we are looking for stronger growth, improvements in living standards, lower prices in the shops, it would be foolish to just carry on as we are in terms of our relationship with the EU.’
Ms Reeves said ‘good progress’ has already been made under Labour’s reset of relations with Brussels, including agreements on food standards and energy trading, as well as the UK rejoining the Erasmus student exchange programme.
She will now consider sectors of the economy – likely to include chemicals, the car industry and financial services – where the UK could once more align with EU regulations in order to gain more access to the single market.
As she first announced in a major address on Tuesday, she believes divergence from Brussels rules should be the ‘exception, not the norm’.
‘Alignment means being able to trade more freely with our biggest trading partners and our nearest neighbours and our closest allies,’ she told The Economist.
‘I have fired the starting gun on where we want to go next, and that is closer alignment.’
Told that many voters want the Government to go further and rejoin the EU, she replied: ‘We voted as a country to leave almost ten years ago. I voted Remain, I campaigned for Remain, if we went back ten years in time, I would vote exactly the same way again.
‘But we have to move on. And that period in June 2016 was an incredibly divisive time for our country.
‘People might like to turn back the clock and might like their answer to have been different, but I do think re-running a referendum would not be in our national interest, I think it would be divisive.’
Pressed on the matter, she said: ‘If we could go back in time, I would have voted again to Remain, I wish we had voted to Remain.
‘But we can’t go back in time, we are in the world as it is, not the world as we might like it to be.’
Brexit was more of a failure than a victory, and tons of people who voted not to remain have voiced disappointment.
We might wish that it never happened, but I also wish that Labour, Starmer, Rayner and Reeves had never happened, and we must remember that the government is not our friend.
When we voted for Brexit to remain or not to remain, our government at the time never expected it to go the way that it did, and it has caused a catastrophe for the UK, and it has caused enormous and profound damage to the UK economy, and because of this Britain has ended up with mass immigration instead of the promise to take control.
THE MONTHLY MOSQUITO 