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Labour has not got over losing the Brexit referendum and wants to push a cash-strapped Britain back into the grasp of Brussels, leading Brexiteers claimed as experts took the Government to task for not making the most of opportunities outside the European Union.

Shadow Foreign Secretary Dame Priti Patel launched a blazing attack on the Prime Minister, who previously served as Jeremy Corbyn's Shadow Brexit Secretary and pushed for a second referendum.

She said: "Keir Starmer and the Labour party still haven't gotten over losing the Brexit referendum. That's why they are openly flirting with taking us into the EU by the backdoor via a customs union with Brussels, and fighting among themselves about who can sound the most Europhile.

"Labour are running out of people to blame for the disastrous impacts of their misguided policies on our economy, and so, in desperation, they are pointing the finger at Brexit. But we can all see through this blatant attempt to distract from the reality of their incompetent leadership."

Instead of using Brexit freedoms to "streamline regulations", she accused Labour of "adding more red tape" through the workers' rights package spearheaded by former deputy prime minister Angela Rayner.

Dame Priti said: "The democratic will of the people has been actioned, whereas Labour are trying to take us back a decade and reopen old wounds."

Labour's conduct reminded former Business Secretary Sir Jacob Rees-Mogg of the television comedy Blackadder.

He said: "Baldrick would be proud of this Government's cunning plans. By failing to use Brexit to deregulate, by adopting the EU's green policies and tariffs as well as by paying into the European coffers, it is hoping to make our economy so bad that people will want to rejoin the EU. Fortunately, the British people aren't so stupid."

Fred de Fossard of the Prosperity Institute accused the Prime Minister of missing opportunities to boost Britain's economy, saying: "Being outside the EU gives Britain an extraordinary amount of freedom to compete with the dead hand of Brussels. The Prime Minister is refusing to use it.

"We could get rid of heavy-handed EU green laws which make it so slow and expensive to build the roads, railways and power stations the British people sorely need...

"We could unleash the City of London and compete with financial centres in America and Asia and leave the EU behind, embracing competition and dynamism, the exact opposite of what the EU is doing. None of these will harm the public finances, quite the opposite.

"Britain can be rich again, if only the Prime Minister tried."

Iain Mansfield of Policy Exchange said: "Despite good progress on trade deals, both this Government and the previous ones have failed to use the opportunities provided by Brexit to slash red tape."

Such reform, he added, is "essential to grow our economy and rejuvenate our high streets - and with growth stuttering and unemployment rising, it is more necessary than ever."

A Labour source said: "We have secured historic trade agreements with the US, India, EU, and South Korea, which will grow the economy, back British jobs, and put more money in people's pockets. It's the Tories who failed to make the UK a great trading nation post-Brexit and Nigel Farage who says he'd rip up our deals."

It is nearly 10 long years since the British people voted to leave the European Union. Too much time has already been wasted searching for a halfway house.

The additional uncertainty has held back growth. Net migration has surged. The carving out of Northern Ireland has undermined the integrity of the UK.

But even this "botched Brexit" has not been the disaster that many predicted. The UK still leads the rest of Europe as a destination for foreign investment. There has been some good progress in lowering barriers to trade with the rest of the world.

Meanwhile, trade in services has boomed. The City of London continues to flourish and is now a champion of the benefits of smarter regulation.

And the UK has already saved tens of billions of pounds in contributions to the EU Budget.

It is still hard to separate the impact of Brexit from other shocks, notably the UK's relatively high energy costs. But the performance of the UK economy has been similar to that of France, and much better than that of Germany.

The really big gap has been between Europe's weakness and America's strength. EU policymakers are experts in "managed decline" and masters of overregulation. It would be madness to seek to realign more closely with a failing economic bloc.

Rejoining a customs union with the EU would mean tearing up our new trade deals with other countries. Adopting the EU emissions scheme and imposing additional carbon taxes will raise costs even further.

The UK is being asked to overpay to rejoin the EU's inferior student exchange programme and even for the right to contribute to Europe's defence.

Instead, we should go back to basics. The vote to leave the EU was a vote to regain control of borders, laws and money. Polling shows that the British people still want the UK government to make policy in a wide range of areas. This is simply incompatible with giving sovereignty back to the EU.

The UK must be able to diverge from European regulations, especially in growth sectors such as AI and life sciences. We need to be able to run our own trade policy, and choose who comes to live, work or study here.

Britain's economy can thrive again - but only if properly unbound from the EU.

• Julian Jessop is a Fellow at the Institute of Economic Affairs. The views here are his own.