Keir Starmer has been slammed for a major Brexit flip-flop, as Britain formally joins a major new trading deal with some of the world’s biggest economies.

Negotiated under the previous government by Kemi Badenoch, the UK today enters the Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership (CPTPP), the biggest post-Brexit trade deal yet.

Formed of 11 other countries, including Japan, Australia and Canada, it represents over £12 trillion-worth of global GDP.

While Ms Badenoch and the Tories hailed it at the time as a major signal of Britain’s new global trade plans after leaving the EU, Sir Keir poured cold water on the achievement.

Speaking in March 2023, the then-Labour leader bemoaned: “I have to say we need to bear in mind that the new contribution to our economy will be something in the order of 0.08%.”

“What we need alongside that is a closer trading relationship with the EU.

“Businesses across the country are crying out for a better deal than the one that the Government has put in front of them.

“So yes, good to have a new trade deal, but better to have a closer relationship with the EU to go alongside it and to help our businesses grow our economy and take us through and out of this cost-of-living crisis.”

By stark contrast now they’ve entered government, Sir Keir’s trade secretary Jonathan Reynolds celebrated Britain’s accession and boasted it will provide a major £2 billion boost to economic growth.

Mr Reynolds cheered: “Britain is uniquely placed to take advantage of exciting new markets, while strengthening existing relationships.”

“Today’s news is further proof that the UK is a wonderful place to do business, with an open, outward looking economy driving the growth people can feel in their communities.

“Agreements like this boost trade and create opportunities for UK companies abroad. This is a proven way to support jobs, raise wages, and drive investment across the country which is key to this Government’s mission to deliver economic growth.”

This morning the Conservative shadow Business and Trade Secretary Andrew Griffith told the Express: “”Everyone should welcome Labour’s hand brake turn on CPTPP.

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“Let’s hope it’s followed by ditching EU talks which haven’t moved on from open borders and taking our fish and instead getting into the room on a US trade deal.”

This morning Tory leader Kemi Badenoch said the move to formally join the major tragic bloc proves that Britain is “beating its peers at signing free trade agreements”, but asked whether Labour knows how to use them properly.

She said: “To take full advantage of these new trade links, we need a low-tax, low-regulation economy, not one where the burden of Rachel Reeves’s disaster Budget stunts investment and our farmers fear for their very futures.”

“The CPTPP is a ray of light in an otherwise gloomy economic outlook for our country, and I pay tribute to the contribution of our outgoing head trade negotiator, Sir Crawford Falconer, who did so much to deliver it.

“It says everything about Labour’s lack of interest in doing trade deals that one of their first acts was to dispense with the services of the UK’s most experienced trade negotiator.”