Today, Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer will celebrate a victory in his “reset” of relations with the European Union. But an eleventh-hour wrangle to secure major concessions on fishing shows how the bloc can still exploit Britain’s desperation.
Although the current mood is one of reconciliation and renewed partnership after the years of Brexit conflict, the EU’s uncompromising actions show that pragmatic self-interest of individual members of the bloc – in this case France’s fishermen – still holds sway.
The deal’s framework was clear before the weekend. This gave Brussels leverage to demand further concessions just before midnight on Sunday night; EU negotiators threatened to derail Starmer’s key moment unless Britain granted long-term fishing rights. Despite British opposition to permanently linking UK food export access to fishing rights, the EU and UK agreed to a compromise which extended current EU catch quotas for 12 years. The UK had wanted five.
In exchange, Starmer obtained a comprehensive veterinary agreement that will significantly reduce bureaucracy for British agricultural and fisheries exports to their largest market, a key economic objective of the “reset” negotiations. British people don’t eat the fish the British trawlers catch – 70 per cent of all UK fish exports from the UK by value go to the EU.
Starmer is betting that increased prosperity and security will eventually overshadow the fallout from Brexit, arguing that voters’ primary concern is moving forward. If the changes can be scored as boosting growth by the Office for Budget Responsibility, then that will give Starmer and his Chancellor Rachel Reeves more wriggle room at the Budget to make the changes being demanded by their own MPs, on winter fuel for pensioners, on child poverty and on welfare payments for the most vulnerable.
Any talk of punishment of the UK is hyperbole, and so too is the Brexiters’ talk of “sellout” and promises to undo the changes announced on Monday. It will likely be at least another four years before Reform UK or the Conservatives get a chance to look at the levers of negotiation. For the Europeans, there is a sense of relief that relations can be normalised.
Nothing will ever be good enough for dyed-in-the-wool Brexiters though. Reform UK’s Richard Tice told GB News that Starmer “basically wants to get us back into the EU through the back door. That’s what this is all about, cosying up, chummy, chummy, freedom of movement, taking their rules and regulations”. His party is predicting the demise of the fishing industry entirely.
But Britain has moved on from 2016. The battles are in the present in a world altered beyond recognition by Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin.
On BBC radio on Monday morning, High Representative of the European Union for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy Kaja Kallas was asked about a suggestion from Business Secretary Jonathan Reynolds that the UK could pay more into the bloc’s budget in exchange for more influence – say, as the Norwegians do. She felt compelled to point out the bleedin’ obvious.
“You are not in the EU, so of course you don’t have the same influence over the decisions of the European Union. That was the whole idea of Brexit, that you don’t want to be part of it,” she said.
This isn’t punishing the UK; it’s a wish the British would wake up to the idea that the whole scheme had been a mistake from start to finish. Accounts in the UK of crazy last-minute negotiations are met by shrugs from EU diplomats.
Over the last three years, nearly every survey has suggested a majority would now vote to rejoin the EU. That’s because the polls now consider the view of young people who could not vote in 2016. They back going back into the EU by nearly three to one.
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Most voters have concluded that Brexit has been economically damaging and has failed to deliver what many Leave voters had hoped for: above all, a reduction in immigration.
A question mark still hangs over Starmer’s plan to stop small boat crossings by dismantling the smuggling gangs, which depends on closer law enforcement collaboration. Despite Brussels’ willingness to cooperate on intelligence and joint projects, it has blocked access to crucial databases – including fingerprint records of undocumented migrants – due to the UK’s non-EU and non-Schengen status.
Britain has been attempting to negotiate a legal solution that would provide border agents with the necessary information without direct database access. Starmer advocates for increased data sharing, requesting real-time suspect information and asylum claim histories.
The use of the grand Lancaster House, which nestles next to St James’s Palace off Pall Mall, hints of a grand reset. But this is the starting point of further negotiations. A youth mobility agreement is still under discussion as the EU is yet to agree to a numerical cap. A fudge between Britain’s insistence on an annual limit and EU demands for a more open-ended scheme is likely.
Starmer has lunch on a warship with his European guests and a reception with UK businesses late afternoon on Monday. But then he has a harder sell to his own MPs concerned about the rise of Reform when he addresses the Parliamentary Labour Party (PLP) in the early evening. MP Jo White, the chair of the Red Wall Group, warned only this morning against the political risk of handing the European Court of Justice power and easing open the borders to young immigrants.
Discussions about fish will also dominate the PLP. Last night’s events underscored that, despite a reset in relations, Brussels remains unobligated to favour Britain.
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