SNUGGLING up to the European Union will not solve Britain’s economic problems, Communist Party general secretary Alex Gordon said today.

Speaking as the government announced plans for a new law to allow ministers to align more easily with EU rules, he said that such measures “will not deliver more industrial investment.”

Mr Gordon stressed that Labour has not used the “powers accrued as a result of leaving the EU” to rebuild the economy and to end Britain’s status as a “low-investment, low-productivity economy.”

Labour’s plan to make it easier to adopt Brussels economic rules is part of Chancellor Rachel Reeves’s strategy for gradual reintegration of Britain into the single market since it is “inescapably bound” to Europe.

Her fellow Europhile, Business Secretary Peter Kyle, warned however that Britain should not be “plunging ourselves into a very long, protracted debate” about rejoining the EU, something recently championed by London Mayor Sadiq Khan.