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Brexiteers have reacted with fury after Sir Keir Starmer committed to putting the United Kingdom ever-closer to Europe. Speaking in central London, the Remain-backing Prime Minister made the call in a speech aimed at resetting his Government and staving off growing calls for his resignation.

He told attendees that his Government would be "defined by rebuilding our relationship with Europe" as Sir Keir added he would be "putting Britain at the heart" of the trading bloc. The call came just weeks after the country celebrated its 10-year anniversary of the decisive vote, which Sir Keir opposed, to leave the EU.

The europhile former lawyer has long been angling for a "reset" with Brussels Eurocrats and has made closer ties with the EU a key part of his premiership. Members of his own Cabinet have also called for the country to be dragged back into the single market and the customs union as part of ongoing talks.

But Brexit giants branded the latest betrayal as a "desperate attempt by Starmer to keep his job", with Ashley Fox, the Conservative MP and former MEP, adding that Sir Keir was "appealing to pro-EU fanatics in the Labour Party." Mr Fox said this was the last thing the country needed, calling instead for a return to "competent government that reduces welfare spending, cuts taxes and spends more on defence."

He was joined in his criticism by the former MP, the broadcaster Jacob Rees-Mogg, who said that voters had "rejected the EU in 2016 and Sir Keir last week" and said that "two rejects have become abject." The Daily Express has long campaigned to leave the European Union, and even rejected calls to enter it in the first place. Your paper is now calling for Labour grandees to 'Give Us A Proper Brexit'.

The campaign is calling for the UK to exit the ECHR, cut back red tape and impose a 12-mile exclusion zone around the British coast to protect our fishermen. One backer of that campaign, Chairman of the Brexiteer European Research Group, Mark Francois, told the Express: "One of the reasons Sir Keir Starmer is failing is his total lack of feel for public opinion. If he thinks trying to overturn the result of the 2016 Referendum - and taking us towards rejoining the EU - is somehow going to rescue his dying Premiership, that is not only desperate, it is deluded."

Mike Wood, a Conservative MP warned that the Prime Minister "seems to think that the way to reconnect with voters is to tell them that they were all wrong". He added that Sir Keir believed "that the way to secure growth in our economy is to tie ourselves to the rule and regulations that have led to lower growth in France and Germany over the past decade."

Sir Keir's EU plan would "mean higher energy bills, higher costs for the taxpayer and the kind of stagnation that Germany has suffered", the MP cautioned.

Former Tory leader, Ian Duncan Smith, slammed the Prime Minister's calls to surrender more British sovereignty to Brussels as "a narrow, cynical and deeply irresponsible misuse of the powers of office." Speaking to this paper, he accused the Prime Minister of "discarding" election pledges - as Sir Keir had "made clear he would respect the referendum result and would not seek to reopen the issue."

So far, the Government has committed to sign on to some 76 EU directives. Many of them would impact the UK farming industry, which critics say is already overburdened by regulation. Reform UK told this paper that "if Keir and Labour want to fight the next election on rejoining the single market, aka returning to freedom of movement. Bring it on."

Lee Anderson, one of the party's MPs, even accused Labour of "sticking two fingers up to the Red Wall." He added: "Labour have just been wiped out in the Brexit supporting Red Wall and Starmer thinks the best way to win the Red Wall back is by rejoining the EU through the back door. Last week should have taught them not to ignore their voters."

He was joined by fellow Reformer Andrew Rosindell, who said: "The Prime Minister's dying attempt to drag Britain back towards the European Union through the back door is an insult to the millions of people who voted to restore our sovereignty in 2016." The Romford MP added: "Brexit was a democratic revolt against decades of power being stripped away from the British people and their Parliament. It was a call for constitutional restoration, national rejuvenation, and the reassertion of parliamentary supremacy as the true vehicle for the public will."

The Government has yet to lay out precisely what it would seek to achieve in its latest attempts to realign with Brussels.