Done up like a kipper doesn’t even begin to cover it. That would presume Surkeir went into his ‘reset’ surrender as a freshly-caught herring.

Even if Starmer did enter the conference chamber naked - as the post-war Labour foreign secretary Nye Bevan once remarked in different circumstances - it was only because he voluntarily prostrated himself face down on the slab, gagging to be split butterfly fashion along the dorsal ridge, before being gutted, salted and cold-smoked.

Under this craven ‘deal’ any herring caught in British waters in future will be processed in the EU, after being hoovered up by a French factory trawler for at least the next 12 years. Or, more likely, in perpetuity.

Surkeir Assumed The Position from the off, grabbing his ankles as he toddled off to Brussels. There was nothing he wasn’t prepared to concede, starting with shamefully selling out Britain’s fishermen as a basis for negotiation.

Forget the garbage about standing firm on the single market and the customs union. This was the most humiliating piece of alleged ‘Good for Britain’ diplomacy since the late Tory Prime Minister Grocer Heath signed his last-minute betrayal treaty with the old Common Market more than 50 years ago.

From the moment Starmer stood for the Labour leadership, I christened him a complete and utter lawyer. That now seems hopelessly inadequate.

Actually, he’s a complete and utter LIAR. As a work of fiction, this ‘deal’ is right up there with Alastair Campbell’s criminally-deceitful dodgy dossier on Iraq.

Sir Keir Starmer speaks during the UK-EU summit at Lancaster House in London today

The Prime Minister chats with European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen during the talks

Surkeir’s disingenuous attempt at statesmanship/salesmanship today, flanked by a couple of EU heavies - Ursula Andress, or whatever her name is, and some other unelected nonentity - was a Melton Mowbray masterclass in porkies.

(Ursula and Wossisface reminded me of the Two Ronnies of Doom either side of Boris during Covid.)

This wasn’t so much a press conference, it was a hostage video, albeit one in which the hostage himself had been more than willing to participate without the necessity of being chained to a radiator or threatened with beheading.

On the contrary, Starmer wrote his own script - or rather his sinister backstairs minder Boaty McSweeney did.

The lies came thick and fast, none more so than Starmer’s ludicrous claim that this was a good deal for British fisherfolk. If that’s the case, Keir, why are you bunging the fishing industry £360 million of taxpayers’ money to mitigate the damage?

Why would you give away fishing rights for the next dozen years, especially when it had been trailed that the post-Brexit settlement would be reviewed annually?

Labour won’t be in power in 12 years’ time. My best guess is that the next election will see them routed by Reform, with any luck. The only reason they’ve extended this deal is that it’s the starter for ten for taking us back into the EU for good.

I told you on Day One after Labour’s loveless landslide that they were going to slash and burn.

Never mind Rachel From Complaints’ schoolgirl incompetence, which makes Liz Truss look like Warren Buffett. Or the ‘two-tier’ justice system, the victimisation of farmers and the open borders asylum policy.

Under the deal agreed by Sir Keir EU fishing boats will be guaranteed access to UK waters for 12 years

What we’re dealing with here is a Prime Minister who fundamentally hates Britain - or, at least, the British people who embraced Brexit. The so-called ‘far-Right’ gammons, too thick to know what’s good for them.

I told you almost a year ago that Starmer would complete the Blair revolution, handing even more power to international treaties, unelected judges and quangocrats. Central to that was dragging us back into the EU, by hook or by crook.

Look at that pair of superannuated Euro-Muppets flanking him today. We didn’t vote for either of them - and neither did anyone in Europe, for that matter - but our Prime Minister thinks we should be subordinate to their ilk.

As the much-maligned George W. Bush said, Europe has three presidents - and nobody voted for any of them. Say what you like about Trump, but he’s term-limited and can be removed at the ballot box.

No, this was the Starmer Project all along - to overturn the biggest vote in British history for anything.

To put things into perspective, 17,410,742 people voted Leave. No ifs, no buts. Out.

Last summer, just over half that number voted Labour. But because of the quirks of our electoral system, Starmer ended up with a massive majority. Four million-plus voted Reform, yet Farage’s nascent party got just five MPs.

Surkeir is now using that unwarranted, democratic outrage of a majority to bulldozer through our return to the sclerotic EU.

This column does broad brush, not detail, but under this ‘deal’ we will once again be subject to the rule of unelected foreign judges. We will have to surrender our food standards and fishing waters to Brussels. This is almost unconditional surrender.

And what are we getting out of it, apart from Starmer being handed a gold-embossed invitation back to the lobster supper tables in Strasbourg? Three parts of Sweet Fanny Adams, as my old grandmother used to say.

The best Boaty McSweeney can come up with is that we’ll be allowed to use the e-gates at European airports. Gawd bless, ya, guv. You’re a toff and no mistake.

If Starmer had any intention of sticking up for British interests, he’d have told the Eurocrats he was withdrawing the right of EU nationals to use British e-gates at Heathrow and beyond. Why the hell should UK passport holders have to queue up behind EU citizens at London’s airports? That was supposed to be a Brexit benefit.

Oh, sorry, I almost forget pet passports. Pets Win Prizes! Vote Labour.

Plus, as I’ve written before, why are we having to PAY to sell arms to EU armies? We have the best Armed Forces and defence industry in Europe. They should be paying us.

Plus, plus, plus . . . American ‘chlorinated chicken’ is beyond the pale, but we must let the European courts decide on whether we can import Romanian horse meat.

And, another thing, why are we granting freedom of movement by the front door to ‘youths’ aged not 30, as I thought originally, but potentially up to 35? I suppose that allows ‘asylum seekers’ halfway through their three score years and ten to pretend they are teenagers and therefore are automatically granted indefinite leave to remain here, under Surkeir’s ‘beloved’ yuman rites act.

The deranged Rejoiners keep telling us that Brexit hasn’t worked. Whose fault is that, then? The political class - including a substantial number of Tories, who ought to be ashamed of themselves - have moved Heaven and Earth to scupper any of the benefits of voting Leave.

Starmer spent four years trying to get a second referendum to overturn the referendum result. So why shouldn’t we now have another election to kick out this crowd of far-Left chancers, Tufnell Park lawyers and Euro-fanatics?

Trust me, especially after today, if Starmer could abolish the next election and lock us into the EU for ever, he’d do it in a heartbeat. Forget the Mr Cholmondley-Warner delivery and the lies about an ‘island of strangers’, this is a very bad man indeed.

In my career as a journalist - including ten years as a Labour correspondent - Labour has gone from a party of the ‘working people’ Starmer claims to idolise to a clique of contemptuous Leftie North London lawyers who despise the very country they were elected to govern.

Take Surkeir’s best mate Miliband’s Net Zero madness. As of yesterday, we’re also signing up to the EU ‘carbon taxes’ which will make our electricity bills - already some of the most expensive in the world - ever higher.

Which brings us back to Nye Bevan, who once said that Britain was an island built on coal and surrounded by fish (and oil and gas, I might add).

Bevan, a great man who opposed unilateral nuclear disarmament, once attacked the Tories’ incompetence in government, saying: ‘Only an organising genius could produce a shortage of coal and fish at the same time.’

It’s taken more than 70 years and a Labour government run by two arrogant, hopelessly-out-of touch North London Lefties to do just that.

Thanks to Surkeir and Mister Ed, we’ve all been done up like a kipper.