Why has Starmer’s Brexit reset with the EU stumbled?

Not for the first time, this government finds itself stumbling into the gap between its pre-election rhetoric and post-election realities. Even though Labour’s pledge to “reset” the Brexit deal negotiated by Boris Johnson was couched in the most cautious terms, hopes of something more were inevitably raised among pro-Europeans – a significant slice of Labour’s support.

However, even some of the prime minister’s most modest proposals seem to be running into difficulty – from the European Union. In a highly embarrassing development for a party that sought to rebuild friendly relations, the EU is taking the government to court…

EU officials are upset that the 3.5 million EU citizens resident in the UK on a long-term basis aren’t being treated in accordance with the UK-EU withdrawal agreement. The main problem is that the existing paper “certificate of application” indicating a right to enter, live and work in the UK is being replaced by a digital version, and that the Home Office has ended the phone enquiry line that airlines, employers and others used to verify the ID. The rights of workers and extended family are also at issue. The EU Commission is also suing over Britain’s failure to terminate bilateral investment deals with six EU countries that the commission said overlapped and clashed with EU law.

Yes. The EU wants something in return for “tearing down trade barriers” as the British propose. Specifically, it’s no secret that their key demands are: more access to UK fisheries; a “youth experience scheme” that allows young people aged 18 to 30 to work, travel and study anywhere in the UK and 27 member states for a few years, on a reciprocal basis; and some role for the Court of Justice of the European Union.

Nothing in principle, but ministers fear the damage and distraction it would inflict on a busy government. There are already, predictably, headlines about “Brexit betrayal” and a “surrender squad” of civil servants being assembled to sell out British interests. Politically, Labour fears that its more Eurosceptic voters, many in red-wall seats in the Midlands and the North, plus those in coastal fishing communities, would defect to the Conservatives and Reform UK.

That’s going too far. Geopolitics is already pushing the UK and EU closer together on defence and security matters, where Britain has more to offer. Keir Starmer’s attendance at the Joint Expeditionary Force meeting with Baltic states, all EU and Nato members, about further assisting Ukraine is clear evidence of that mood to be closer. There must be a good chance that Labour will fulfil the manifesto promise to “seek an ambitious new UK-EU security pact to strengthen cooperation on the threats we face. We will rebuild relationships with key European allies, including France and Germany, through increased defence and security cooperation.”

The unstated hope is that the potential of this defence and security pact can be used to leverage concessions from the EU on the rest of the agenda – lowering trade barriers (especially on food and trade between Great Britain and Northern Ireland), mutual recognition of professional qualifications, gaining more market access for the City of London, and certain technical matters concerning electric vehicles, for example.

Of course, and the government is quietly doing precisely that. The deliberately dull-sounding Product Regulation and Metrology Bill will confer on ministers the power voluntarily to adopt EU regulations when it is in the British interest to do so. It’s a sensible enough measure but easily disrupted as rejoining the EU “through the back Delors” to revive a phrase once used by Mrs Thatcher.

Britain would love to, but a partial solution is disliked by the EU which has had to do something similar with Switzerland for decades and has no wish to extend it. Indeed, the EU seems solid that while significant further reduction of trade frictions would be in the EU’s interests, it would require the UK to join the single market and/or customs union, presumably complete with freedom of movement of labour, European Court jurisdictions and a contribution to the EU budget.

With a deal, an amalgam of: the technical review of the EU-UK Trade and Cooperation Agreement; some modest improvements on veterinary checks and phytosanitary rules; give and take on fisheries; some limited youth mobility schemes; plus an embryonic “defence union”, still secondary to Nato. The “reset” will be messy and fail to satisfy anyone - disappointing to the rejoiners and infuriating the Brexiteers. But Starmer will get “Brexit 2.0” done, with the suggestion of more to follow in the 2028-29 manifesto.

There’s a good deal of “Bregret” – buyers’ remorse over the 2016 referendum decision, reinforced by demographics, as more European youngsters join the electoral rolls (and possibly EU residents).

Ideally, the British would like to turn the clock back and rejoin the EU in the same terms enjoyed up until Brexit in 2021. However, that deal is no longer on the table. Rejoining in the 2020s would, potentially, mean: a larger contribution to the EU budget; a commitment in principle to scrap the pound and join the euro; joining the Schengen border-free area; conceding fishing rights; reinstating the European Court as supreme on certain issues; and unwinding the various trade deals reached post-Brexit, as well as abandoning any hope of such bilateral arrangements with the United States or India. Voters would also expect some sort of referendum, on the 1975 and 2016 precedents, with all the rows and trauma that implies. And it probably wouldn’t settle anything for good.

It’s not immediately obvious that the British would give wholehearted consent to that. The European dilemma feels a timeless one, and likely to outlive the Starmer administration.