Labour leadership seems to assume EU Commission and member-state leaders will let it sidle up close as it's the reasonable thing to do, and has no clue/interest in the appalling damage and insult of how brexit was done. That harm, and the hundreds of millions it cost, isn't going away by itself.
(and I'd Labour to succeed in re-establishing any ties it can. but it won't happen just because Labour wants it. It's a pro-brexit party with no internal story or plan about the damage brexit did to other countries and institutions. Labour forgets but no one in the EU does.)
Having reneged on all his promises to the Labour members who put him into the leadership, the Starmerish thing would be to do the same to Red Wall voters after getting in. Find a euphemism for Single Market & rejoin it on whatever terms EU will give.
