As calamity Reeves botches another budget, PM Keir Starmer declares he wants us to draw closer to the EU – but with political turmoil and economic stagnation across the continent, it’s really not the best time for closer ties. Nor to say Brexit is to blame for all our woes. Starmer’s shortsighted remarks are no surprise, however, as the Government and civil service must miss the EU desperately. It was great to have someone else to blame for any bureaucratic absurdity or a failure to act because of EU regulation. Now, the Government can only look in the mirror when it comes to finding fault. The rafts of regulations stifling our economy are their decisions alone.

Having failed to trigger growth with two budgets, Starmer and his Remainer buddies believe that more EU integration will do the job. But has he really looked across the Channel? EU growth has stalled at just 0.2% this year, while France is even further down the road to socialist hell than we are. Only one-third of French people work in the private sector and top tax rates in France exceed 55%, while the average effective retirement age in France is just 60.7 years.

France owes a staggering £2.82 trillion – its interest payments amount to the total French defence and education budgets alone.

Meanwhile, France’s debt-to-GDP ratio has hit 114%. Put simply, the land of the long lunch is spending way more than it generates. The UK is on the same path; public sector debt reached 94.5% of GDP at the end of October.

France’s bloated welfare state and high public spending are hardly a good model for the UK therefore, although there is some comfort in sharing the same miserable fate. President Macron continues with his tax-and-spend approach to appease party supporters but it’s clearly not working with attacks from the left and right bringing deadlock to his government.

As for signs that Starmer’s reset with the beleaguered president is bearing fruit, there is startling little evidence of that. The one-in, one-out accord signed this summer has delivered little significant reduction in illegal migrants, while it is patently clear that the French are happy to take our money without delivering much enforcement.

The fact is that the French are more than happy to rid themselves of troublesome migrants, facing their own domestic calls to stop the Islamification of their own country.

Meanwhile, Germany, once the powerhouse of the EU, is staggering under the weight of high energy costs brought by hardline green policies. Its past lax immigration rules have allowed a hard-right party to rise in the polls.

Reaction to the misrule of soft-left parties is arguably shifting the entire continent towards far less tolerant solutions. Denmark has proved it can cut immigration numbers by taking a tougher line towards asylum seekers. Perhaps that is the only good lesson to be taken from the EU.

It seems perverse that the Labour Government is seeking to align itself more closely with the EU just when it is becoming clear that Brussels-derived rules on biodiversity and the environment are making it near impossible to kick-start the British economy with more building projects.

Some Labour ministers want to see a deal for greater youth mobility with the EU, but that is running counter to the Home Secretary’s efforts to reduce out-of-control immigration. And what jobs would these European youngsters do in a Britain where the Chancellor has ratcheted up the cost of employing 18-20 year olds by some £4,000 a year?

As always this desperate Government likes to blame others for its own dismal performance. Reversing Brexit is just the perfect plan for them, taking power out of their own incompetent hands and giving it to even more inadequate bureaucratic bunglers. That way they can clear their desks, work their four-day weeks and take their gold-plated pensions knowing that it is someone else’s problem to sort out.

Brexit was one of the most courageous and exciting choices made by the electorate in recent years. That successive governments have failed to make the most of this opportunity is not our fault but theirs.

Their low-growth, high tax and red-tape straitjacket is what we voted to leave, but Labour is doubling down on a political path that is taking us nowhere. Only an idiot would think that joining a similar club of no-hopers is the answer.