Fears have been raised about what concessions Keir Starmer will make to the EU after he stepped up pleas for a ‘reset’ in the face of Donald Trump’s chaos.
The PM unveiled a fresh effort to unwind Brexit at a Downing Street press conference yesterday, saying the Middle East crisis demonstrated the need to get closer to Europe.
He declared that a UK-EU summit this summer would thrash out an ‘ambitious’ package for closer alignment. In another sign of intent, Sir Keir spoke to EU commission president Ursula von der Leyen overnight to take stock of progress in talks.
However, critics warned that the premier had given up more leverage in the negotiations, with Brussels already making demands over a youth ‘free movement’ scheme and Britain following the bloc’s rules. Payments into the EU’s budgets will also be a critical element of the talks.
Kemi Badenoch swiped that the Chagos ‘surrender’ deal showed that ‘when the PM negotiates Britain loses’
The PM made his intervention shortly after Mr Trump renewed his insults against the UK and threatened to pull the US out of Nato.
But Sir Keir has been under massive pressure from senior Labour figures to shift closer to Brussels.
Deputy PM David Lammy and Health Secretary Wes Streeting have both suggested they support rejoining the customs union.
Meanwhile, London mayor Sir Sadiq Khan has called for Labour to make rejoining the EU a key plank of its next election manifesto.
Cabinet Office minister Nick Thomas-Symonds, who has been leading talks with Brussels, said there had been ‘very significant progress’.
‘I am very confident that we will get to an agreement… on youth mobility, emissions trading and indeed on the food and drink agreement,’ he told Politico’s Westminster Insider podcast.
He added: ‘We will have a deal at the 2026 annual summit.’
Mr Thomas-Symonds acknowledged that the UK would need to contribute to EU coffers.
But he insisted he was being ‘robust’ and ‘in all these cases… we will apply value for money tests, what is in the interests of our economy’.
He added: ‘We are at a moment when it is clearly in the interests of both the EU and the UK to have a close relationship.’
On signs of the EU resisting UK asks such as an emergency brake on numbers coming under the youth mobility scheme, Mr Thomas-Symonds said both sides were playing ‘hardball’.
He also dodged on Brussels insisting that people coming to study in the UK should get lower tuition fees.
‘I expect a range of issues to be raised… that’s just the nature of it,’ he said.
At his press conference yesterday, Sir Keir needed to be asked two questions before insisting Labour’s manifesto pledge not to rejoin the EU customs union stood.
‘It is increasingly clear that as the world continues down this volatile path, our long-term national interest requires closer partnership with our allies in Europe and with the European Union.’
Brexit ‘did deep damage to our economy’, Sir Keir said, adding that the ‘opportunities to strengthen our security and cut the cost of living are simply too big to ignore’.
The PM said this summer’s summit with the EU will not just be used to ‘ratify existing commitments made at last year’s summit’.
He added: ‘We want to be more ambitious.
‘Closer economic co-operation, closer security co-operation, a partnership that recognises our shared values, our shared interest and our shared future.
‘A partnership for the dangerous world that we must navigate together, a world where this Government will be guided at all times by the interests of the British people.’
Mrs Badenoch said: ‘The PM needs to be clear what he is giving up and what he is negotiating.
‘We were very clear that we did not want to be paying any more money to the EU, we wanted control of our laws and our borders.
‘What changes is the PM making? Is he taking us back 10 years to start these wars all over again about what we’re going to be doing with the EU.
‘I’m very concerned that the man who gave away the Chagos Islands and is paying £35 billion for the privilege wants to start more negotiations.
‘Every time he negotiates, Britain loses.’
Labour ex-Cabinet minister David Miliband told BBC Radio 4’s Today Programme: ‘My very clear view is that there’s no going back, anyone who tells you that ‘just hunker down, wait two-and-a-half years, hope there’s a new American president, and things will go back to the status quo ante’. I just don’t buy that.
‘The old idea of the West, based on enlightening self-interest on the part of the United States that was willing to be, if you like, a benevolent hegemon around the world, that is not coming back.
‘We should hold as firmly to those aspects of the American Alliance that we can sustain. But obviously our geography is with Europe, and we’re going to have to sustain and improve dramatically our engagement with the European Union and other European countries. And we’re going to also have to think globally about the kind of alliances that are important for Britain.
‘So if the beginning of your question was, ‘can we just hold our breath and wait?’ the answer to that is no, we’ve got to take the sort of action that I think the Prime Minister was beginning to describe in his comments yesterday about our relationship with Europe.
‘That’s the starting point. It can’t be the ending point.’
