Britain will not be rejoining the EU, the single market nor the customs union – that ship has sailed, and all we seek now is a closer relationship with the EU. So Keir Starmer assures those who feel a little suspicious about his multiple meetings with Olaf Scholz in the weeks since becoming Prime Minister, the latest of which took place this morning. All he seeks, he says, is a better trade deal which would allow better access to EU markets for UK firms.
Maybe Starmer dreams at night of being paraded through the streets of Brussels as the man who engineered Britain’s return to the EU
Maybe Starmer dreams at night of being paraded through the streets of Brussels as the man who engineered Britain’s return to the EU. He did, after all, continue to press for a second referendum right up until the point at which it became too late. I don’t know what is going through his mind, but I do know one thing for sure: the EU is not going to be making any concessions on trade without doing as it continually tried to do throughout the Brexit negotiations: to attempt to bring the UK back within the EU’s regulatory orbit.
As an unnamed source quoted in the Times this morning puts it, Starmer must ‘realise that any access to the EU’s single market comes with obligations on mobility and alignment with European laws, on food safety for example.’ It should be pretty clear what that would mean: an end to the very limited areas of divergence which Britain has effected, such as creating a more favourable regulatory environment for the gene-editing of crops.
The EU already appears to be pressing for a deal which would give the under-30s from the EU the right to live and work in Britain for up to three years – which would be reciprocal. It would be free movement lite, in other words. While many young people in Britain would welcome that it does rather raise the question: would it simply mean the return of large numbers of Eastern Europeans travelling to Britain to take up low-paid jobs and thus suppressing wages for UK workers? That is, after all, one of the pressures which led to the Brexit vote in the first place.
But there is a very big question mark hanging over Starmer’s visit to Berlin. Why, if he says he is seeking to improve trade with the EU, does he seem to be seeking a unilateral treaty with Germany? He is in the wrong city – he should be in Brussels. Quite clearly, trade deals are an EU competence. No individual member state is allowed to do its own trade deal – that is what the Customs Union is all about. Whatever comes of Starmer’s agreement with Scholz, it isn’t going to include anything which makes it easier for us to trade with Germany. The most he can hope for is instigating a process which leads to negotiations with the EU – at which point Emmanuel Macron can be guaranteed to take a far harder line than Scholz.
But it shouldn’t be any surprise that Germany is keen to talk trade with Britain. Germany is the EU economy which is most in need of an economic boost. The Germany economy shrank by 0.1 per cent in the second quarter after a lukewarm 0.2 per cent of growth in the first quarter. By contrast, UK growth was 0.7 per cent followed by 0.6 per cent. Until recently the industrial powerhouse of Europe, Germany’s manufacturing-heavy economy has suffered from high energy prices and competition from China. Car manufacturing – the beating heart of the German economy and a great source of national pride – is way down from its peak in the middle of the last decade.
Britain, Remainers once told us, would suffer from Brexit far more than other EU countries – we need them more than they need us. With Germany struggling, it is becoming ever harder to sustain that argument.
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