The Labour Government has made some politically inept mis-steps over the past 10 months and has paid a price for them. So when it gets something absolutely right, and in line with pre-election commitments, then it is only fair to say so.

This week’s deal with the EU fits into that category. Before the election, Labour’s manifesto made clear that it would not be seeking to rejoin the EU, which would have been a fool’s errand, but would “work to improve the UK’s trade and investment relationship with the EU by tearing down unnecessary barriers”.

It would also work towards “an ambitious new UK-EU security pact to strengthen co-operation on the threats we face”. The latter course of action has been driven by external events, notably the Trump presidency. The former, about breaking down trade barriers, has started to be delivered when it would have been easier to back off.

Indeed, apart from other considerations, this is a significant set-back to the narrative that the Starmer Government is pandering to the advances of Reform UK. Doing deals with Brussels was scarcely designed to win the approbation of Mr Farage. And sure enough, the cry from that quarter was “surrender” and “total capitulation”.

However, Farage was not the only party leader to respond with opportunistic sloganising. Far from welcoming rapprochement with the EU (which he is supposed to be desperate to join), our First Minister went into familiar Rev I M Swinney mode to bemoan Scotland being “an afterthought in the UK’s decision-making” while the fishing industry had been “surrendered”.

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