Anyone hoping for a closer relationship with the EU under a Labour government will be disappointed. There’s no evidence Brussels has any interest in welcoming Britain back into the fold, says Eliot Wilson
Sir Keir Starmer is desperate not to take anything for granted. It is a cautious policy from a cautious man leading a party which has spent 14 miserable and traumatic years in opposition. There are, however, some vague but widely accepted assumptions about an incoming Labour government, and one of them is that the United Kingdom’s relations with the European Union will improve substantially and provide material benefits.
It is nearly four and a half years since the UK formally left the EU, and more than three since the parties concluded a Trade and Cooperation Agreement to regulate our future relationship. Brussels had, however, been the bogeyman for too many in the Conservative Party and for too long for relations to be normalised completely. Starmer is probably right to believe the EU will welcome the turning of a page if he wins the election: but we are suffering from an acute form of Anglocentric solipsism if we believe that our former partners are waiting with bated breath for our return.
This may be the least desirable endorsement Rishi Sunak could imagine, but Brussels insiders freely admit that relations have improved since he became Prime Minister in October 2022. Within six months, he had agreed the Windsor Framework with president of the European Commission Ursula von der Leyen, simplifying the moving of goods from Great Britain to Northern Ireland. The Guardian quoted one EU diplomat saying “over the past year and a half we have worked quite nicely with the last Conservative government”.
However, the European Union we left in 2020 is not the European Union of today. Angela Merkel retired after 16 years as chancellor of Germany, radically resetting the balance of power; Hungary is becoming an ever-more awkward member of the bloc; right-wing governments have taken office in Italy, Finland, Slovakia, Croatia, the Czech Republic and (soon) the Netherlands; and there is a devastating war in Ukraine.
When a draft of the European Council’s strategic agenda for 2024-29 was leaked in April, the effects of these events were clear. The EU is focusing on defence and security — particularly enhancing its defence industrial base — tackling illegal migration and maintaining a competitive economy.
Some parts of Labour’s slightly hazy agenda coincides with this. David Lammy, the shadow foreign secretary, wants “a security pact that drives closer coordination across a wide variety of military, economic, climate, health, cyber, and energy security issues”, and some progress may be possible on that. But Starmer has ruled out rejoining the single market or the customs union, and has been emphatic that the UK will not be a “rule-taker”.
There is no basis to think that the EU will make major concessions to welcome Britain back to a greater sense of amity. When the Commission last month proposed a new deal on youth mobility, under which those aged 18-30 would be able to live, study and work in the UK and the EU for up to four years, Labour rejected it rapidly because it required EU students to pay the same tuition fees as domestic students, and for the NHS surcharge to be waived for young EU nationals.
A source in Brussels was clear to The Guardian: “Great if the Starmer government comes in and is willing and able to work closer with the EU”. Labour has talked about negotiating a new arrangement on sanitary and phytosanitary measures and refining the structures governing Northern Ireland’s access to the single market. But making any significant or institutional changes will require the UK to compromise and accept trade-offs, particularly in terms of meeting EU standards or accepting the jurisdiction of the European Court of Justice.
If Starmer becomes Prime Minister, he will host a meeting of the European Political Community, a body representing 44 European countries as well as the European Commission and the Council, at Blenheim Palace on 18 July—less than a fortnight after he is sworn in. It will be an invaluable meet-and-greet, but he will also need to make a realistic assessment of his fellow leaders’ enthusiasm. EU heads of government will be friendly, but he will find that they remain hard-headed and unlikely to offer any favours.
Eliot Wilson, co-founder of Pivot Point Group