Labour's Wes Streeting says party has 'got the message' as he admits Brexit policy mistake

Streeting backed comments from Sir Keir Starmer about working more closely with the European Union after a Labour election victory.

In an interview with GB News today, he said: "Let me say this as someone who campaigned for remain and passionately so - we’ve got the message. We lost the referendum, we lost two general elections subsequently.

"I’m not going to pretend I was happy about it. But I also know that it wouldn’t be in this country’s interest to relive those battles and to keep on looking back when we should be looking forward to the future.

"People are looking for Britain to say “what do you stand for? Where do you fit in the global race now?” I think that’s not been clear for too long now.

"It’s an opportunity for Labour to reset our foreign policy and to look to the future and not relive the battles of the past."

This meant, he said, working more closely with the EU on measures to tackle the small boats crisis on the south coast of the UK as well as "international crime and terrorism, climate change, breakthroughs in medical science and technology that we can achieve at scale".

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He added: "There are lots of areas where we need to work together and cooperate."

Also speaking on the current strike action impacting the NHS, the Labour frontbencher warned junior doctors might have to wait until the 2030s to get the pay rise that they want.

The shadow Health secretary said that he could not guarantee NHS doctors would receive the 35 per cent pay raise they are demanding by the end of a first term of a Labour government in 2029 or 2030.

Doctors have been striking this week over a long running row over pay. The British Medical Association is demanding “pay restoration” so their salaries are increased by 35 per cent is restored to what they would have been if the Government had not awarded below inflation pay rises since 2008.

However, there has been no progress on a solution, with Health secretary Steve Barclay siding with the independent pay review body in Whitehall which has offered a rise of 6 per cent plus a one off payment of £1,250.

Streeting said: "I have said to the doctors look 35 per cent overnight is not a policy that Labour will be able to afford which has not made popular with everyone.

"I'd rather be honest this side of an election than break promises the other side of the election if we win."

Streeting said he wanted to get the doctors "on the path to pay restoration" - which would deliver the 35 per cent increase - but could not say when that might be achieved.

Asked if the doctors might have got their pay increase by the fifth year of a Labour government, he said: "I don’t know about in one term but I will be willing to sit down and negotiate with the doctors, to say look I recognise the pressure you are under, what can we do to help you with the cost of living?"

Streeting said Labour had resisted demands for big pay rises for public sector workers before the party's election landslide in 1997, but delivered for them in the end.

He said: "We got them on the path of for pay restoration, in fact before the '97 general election Labour was under enormous pressure to make the sort of commitments people are asking me to make now, we are rightly reluctant to make promises unless they knew they could keep them.

"And yet that Labour government did deliver for pay restoration. How did they do that? They got the economy growing, so they could invest in public services, investing our people in public services without hiking up taxes in the way the Conservatives have."