Brexit remains a defining issue, but say it quietly, writes Andrew Hammond as he explores what could be on the cards for Keir Starmer’s high-stakes return to Brussels
Prior to becoming UK Labour leader in 2020, Keir Starmer was the party’s spokesperson on Brexit from 2016 to 2019, and supported a second referendum to potentially allow the UK to re-join the EU. However, as Prime Minister he has rejected this option, seeking instead a better Brexit deal than was agreed in 2020 by ex-premier Boris Johnson.
This key topic will be the focus for Starmer when he meets European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen tomorrow in Brussels. Both sides know there is a potentially once-in-a-decade window of opportunity in 2025 for a significant renegotiation of the 2020 Trade and Co-operation Agreement.
Since assuming power in London, the Prime Minister has met with several key European leaders. This includes French President Emmanuel Macron, German Chancellor Olaf Scholz and Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni.
As he seeks to reshape UK relations with the EU, more than four years after the UK formally left, Starmer recently said he wanted “to ensure that we’ve got a closer trading relationship if we can… I’m not going to pretend it’s easy, but I think it’s possible. This is the beginning of quite a long process”.
While the specifics of the 2025 renegotiation are not yet fully clear, there are key building blocks on the UK agenda. This is short of re-joining either the single market or Customs Union, which Starmer has ruled out.
Key elements of a potential deal include London possibly signing up to the so-called Brussels ‘rule book’ in certain sectors, including chemicals. This would see closer alignment with EU regulations. Another building block that might be part of a revised deal is a so-called “veterinary agreement” to reduce trade barriers on agrifoods. There is also the possibility of greater UK-EU mutual recognition of professional qualifications given the benefits this could have.
One potentially pressing issue too is the possibility of a youth mobility deal, covering some or all people under 30. The EU has prioritised this issue, but Starmer may prefer any such agreement to be part of a wider 2025 ‘grand bargain’. He also knows any such mobility deal will be criticised by some UK Brexiteers who slammed EU-style free movement of people in the 2016 referendum.
Beyond these issues, one huge omission in the 2020 deal is lack of any agreement in external areas like defence and security. Starmer has said “that needs to be done and can be done in a closer relationship with the EU”.
This underlines the UK political sensitivity of the Brexit renegotiation ahead. A paradox of the UK general election campaign earlier this year was absence of discussion on Brexit.
One reason Labour is not talking much publicly about Brexit is concern about this issue which led to its 2019 landslide defeat when Johnson won a mandate to formally take the UK out of the EU in 2020. Johnson secured the largest parliamentary majority for the Conservatives since Margaret Thatcher in the 1980s.
However, Brexit has also divided the political right in the 2020s given the widespread perception that the UK has not prospered since leaving the EU. Now-Reform UK Party leader Nigel Farage, who co-led the Leave campaign in the 2016 referendum, has even sensationally declared that “Brexit has failed”.
The argument of Farage is that Conservative Prime Ministers after 2016, including Johnson, failed to take advantage of what they perceive as the significant freedoms of Brexit. This includes the opportunity to diverge economically from the EU to seek to drive UK competitive advantage.
While a significant number of opinion polls now indicate that the UK public would support re-joining the EU, a key challenge is that the terms of re-entry would probably be different to those on which the UK exited the club in 2020. London negotiated a series of opt-outs, including of the Eurozone single currency, that would no longer be collectively available.
It is unclear that a majority could be secured for such revised terms of membership in any referendum that might be required to ratify potential UK membership in the future. Growing support for the EU since 2016 is wide, but may be shallow.
So Starmer is trying to reshape the centre of debate away from ‘Leave versus Remain’ toward how best to try to make Brexit work. What is clear is that the 2020 deal created significant trade problems that aren’t improving.
The EU got much of what it wanted from the 2020 deal, including a zero tariff, zero quota deal for goods, in which it runs a surplus with the UK. Meanwhile Brussels gave away little on services which is the UK’s strength. The longer the agreement remains unchanged, the more economic activity may potentially migrate given that the UK is at disadvantage vis a vis competitors inside the single market.
The stakes in play are therefore big. A new, more constructive UK-EU partnership may bring benefits for both at a time of significant geopolitical flux.
Andrew Hammond is an associate at LSE IDEAS at the London School of Economics