While all attention has been focussed on the kerfuffle in his Downing Street private office, which forced a reset at the end of his bumpy, clunky first 100 days, Keir Starmer has been pursuing just as bumpy, clunky a reset with the EU.
You may not have noticed because the local media ignores EU matters now that Britain has left (even though the north hasn’t quite left), but Starmer was in Brussels last Wednesday meeting European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen.
Nothing much emerged except an agreement to hold regular EU-UK summit meetings and the inevitable joint statement looking forward to a new relationship and cooperation in a list of areas, but nothing definite, no detail.
That’s apparently the way Starmer likes his overtures to the EU, reminiscent of Father Ted: “Careful now.”
Given the infighting in his government in the last three months, he certainly can’t afford to open another front for there are clear divisions in his government about an EU reset. There is a strong pro-EU sentiment among some new MPs, but equally there is nervousness among many who have just won so-called ‘red wall’ seats with enduring anti-EU sentiment.
Starmer is also acutely conscious that his landslide majority was not because voters warmed to him or his party, but that they were desperate to see the back of the Conservatives.
He won with the lowest share of the vote – 34% – of any incoming British government in history. He is also aware that in 89 seats that Labour won, Farage’s anti-EU Reform party came second. There was no swing to the left. The combined right and far right won a majority there.
Evidence of opposition in the Labour government to closer ties with the EU comes from rejection of the Erasmus scheme which allowed free exchange of students across the EU to spend a year in a university in a different country. The EU offered a watered-down version in April but it was instantly rejected not just by the Conservative government as expected, but also to the surprise of many by Labour.
Thinking that Starmer’s rejection was because of the timing of the offer in the run-up to the general election, Brussels renewed the offer in the summer but again was immediately rejected.
It seems one of the strongest opponents is Home Secretary Yvette Cooper because, even though it is far from the dreaded ‘free movement of people’, thousands of EU students coming to UK universities is not a good look and plays havoc with overall immigration figures.
Really? To add to the opposition, we’re told that the Treasury is opposed to spending hundreds of thousands funding the exchange programme. Really?
If the British government is too nervous to respond to such a harmless gesture of goodwill from Brussels, there is absolutely no chance of meaningful developments to re-connect with the EU. Starmer – cautious, uninspiring, boring, unimaginative, ruthless and Jesuitical – will move crab-like, keeping as low key as possible.
A good example was the visit to Dublin last week of Foreign Secretary David Lammy and Nick Thomas-Symonds, who has been appointed to look after EU relations.
Again, nothing of importance emerged from the meeting, only platitudes about good Anglo-Irish relations. All very low key, almost under the radar.
Note Thomas-Symonds, the EU front man, is a junior minister. He has no input into Cabinet. He has no representative in the Brussels embassy. Is it window dressing?
There’s suspicion in Brussels that Starmer is pursuing the same British strategy as during the Brexit negotiations, divide et impera, with his visits to Berlin, Paris, Madrid and Dublin.
Like his predecessors, Starmer doesn’t seem to know how the EU works. For example, the ambassadors from EU states met before he arrived in Brussels last week to devise a collective response to what he might propose on matters like fisheries, energy and migration. In the event he proposed nothing. He doesn’t realise he’s the supplicant; it’s up to him to make an offer.
Furthermore, the British don’t realise that they’re talking to an EU different from the one they left. Starmer concentrates on the old Franco-German axis, foolishly ignoring the EU’s Nordic-Baltic eight, a bloc like the Visegrad states in the east.
The Nordic-Baltic bloc are wealthy (GDP $2 trillion), powerful and influential. They don’t care about Brexit or the British or veterinary agreements. They have other fish to fry.
Mentioning fish, the British need to prepare for very serious negotiations in 2026 when the 2021 Trade & Cooperation Agreement is up for review, with new quotas for catches required.
Ireland lost out badly in 2021 with its profits down over 80%. Starmer’s government needs to have something to offer on all this – migration, energy, fisheries and trade – but so far can’t even agree amongst themselves on anything.
Starmer – cautious, uninspiring, boring, unimaginative, ruthless and Jesuitical – will move crab-like, keeping as low key as possible
