Priti Patel today (Mon) warns that Keir Starmer’s plans to unpick Brexit is a “betrayal” of the British public that will never be forgotten.

As we approach the 5th anniversary of Britain’s historic departure from the European Union, Dame Priti said that the Labour leader is hellbent on “dragging” us back in “through the back door.”

Writing in the Daily Express the ardent Brexiteer accuses Sir Keir of an “undemocratic” assault on reversing Brexit freedoms.

“Be under no illusion, Starmer is unpicking Brexit,” the shadow foreign secretary warns.

“Labour are pursing with ideological gusto their determined plan to reverse our Brexit freedoms.”

Her warning comes as the Prime Minister and Chancellor Rachel Reeves both signalled in recent days that the UK could sign up to a pan-European customs area.

Downing Street has said such a move would not cross any “red line” while Ms Reeves said she would be “happy” to look at the proposals raised by the EU’s trade chief Maros Sefcovic.

Sir Keir has also been accused of forming an EU “surrender squad” to reverse Brexit as part of his plan to reset the UK’s relationship with Brussels.

A team of up to 100 civil servants is being assembled to run the UK’s negotiations with the bloc, with insiders saying its purpose is to row back on Brexit.

The PM will attend next month’s EU Council meeting in the Belgian capital in what critics are describing as his most brazen act of Brexit betrayal yet.

Dame Priti insists that Sir Keir is only getting started and that further “surrenders” are on the horizon.

“Starmer’s actions are both undemocratic and unnecessary,” she warns.

She highlights Boris Johnson’s Brexit deal, secured on Christmas Eve 2020, that gave Britain a free trade deal and trading opportunities that meant no tariffs or quotas.

“The deal supported and promoted British goods and firms, our exporters and our world-leading financial services sector,” she said.

“Importantly, it was a deal which meant that Britain was no longer controlled by the EU but Labour campaigned against this.”

And she warns that Britain, like the United States, should be “unleashing our sovereign democratic freedoms” by ensuring the government is “working for you and answerable to the British people”.

Instead, she says, Sir Keir “chooses to insult the intelligence of hard-working families and businesses, forcing them to bankroll his ideological dream of putting Britain back under EU control.”

In a final stark message, the leading Tory warns the PM and his “unpatriotic Brexit denying government”: “Betray Brexit and you will betray the British people at your peril.”

Britain finally left the EU on January 31, 2020. It marked a huge victory for this newspaper, following a tireless crusade to free Britain from the shackles of Brussels.

But Labour’s planned “reset” with the EU appears to be gathering momentum.

Speaking on Sky News’ Sunday Morning with Trevor Phillips, Ms Reeves gave the clearest signal yet that Britain could join the Pan Euro Mediterranean Convention (PEM).

“It was really interesting to see Maros Sefcovic this week suggest that the UK might be welcome in that Pan Euro Mediterranean customs framework,” she said.

“We are absolutely happy to look at those different proposals because we know the deal the previous government secured is not working well enough, not for small businesses trying to export, it’s not working well enough for large businesses either.

“We’re grown up enough to admit that, whereas the previous government said there were no problems at all.”

Sir Keir Starmer’s spokesman did not rule out future membership last week and said his red lines were that “we will never join a single market, freedom of movement”.

“The arrangement that’s been discussed is not a customs union,” he said.

“Our red line has always been that we will never join a single market, freedom of movement, but we’re just not going to get ahead of those discussions.”

The PEM was launched in 2012 and aims to make it easier for 25 countries, mostly in Europe and north Africa, to trade with each other through common rules by signing free trade agreements to reduce or lift tariffs on each other’s goods.

Some business groups have backed the UK joining the PEM because it would help to maintain complex supply chains.

But the previous Conservative government chose not to pursue it as part of a post-Brexit trade agreement.

They feared it would surrender Britain’s ability to strike independent trade deals and maintain regulatory autonomy.

Reform MP Richard Tice said: “Clueless Rachel wants to constrain the UK into a higher regulatory regime with no growth and high taxes. This will reduce growth and we should be going in the opposite direction.”