In the wake of party conference season, Jill Rutter reflects on how much attention was paid to the UK’s relationship with the EU at the Liberal Democrat, Labour Party, Conservative Party, Green Party and Reform UK party conferences.
Five conferences of UK-wide parties over the last month have started to draw the battle lines over Europe.
The only leader with a positive perspective was the Liberal Democrat, Ed Davey. He said: “only we Liberal Democrats have set out plans for the economy that are both transformational and achievable. Plans to rebuild our relationship with Europe, tearing down the Conservatives’ trade barriers with a new customs union – boosting trade and putting us back on the path to the single market.” And he reiterated the Liberal Democrat critique of the government’s cravenness towards President Trump: “there is no serious strategy for restoring economic growth that doesn’t involve rebuilding Britain’s relationship with Europe. And beyond Europe, we have set out plans to form a new economic Coalition of the Willing to stand up to Trump’s tariffs – not only with our European neighbours, but Commonwealth allies like Canada and other like-minded nations across the globe. To take control of our own economic destiny, instead of waiting anxiously for the next rambling Trump press conference.” On the conference floor, Liberal Democrats debated the future of the reset, and were prepared to bring up relations with the EU spontaneously as the first building block of rebuilding the British economy.
That puts them in a very different place to both Keir Starmer and Kemi Badenoch.
Keir Starmer is starting to criticise Brexit as failing to deliver – and is getting close to calling Brexit “snake oil”, even if he left it to his listeners to join the dots: “The Brexit lies on the side of that bus. Click here for your new country. We can all see these snake oil merchants…” And he was prepared to bracket Brexit with other examples of what he would term economic mismanagement or crisis when he talked about why people are frustrated: “They’ve been nothing but patient…They lived through austerity…Brexit…Covid…” And he got even nearer to calling out the politicians who brought you Brexit, even though he did not speak any names: “Politicians who lied to this country…Unleashed chaos…And walked away after Brexit…”
The blame Brexit and Farage strategy is one that the government is reportedly doubling down on for the Budget – attributing to the economic costs of Brexit the need to put up taxes again. But while using his past campaigning for Brexit as a weapon to take on Farage and Reform seems fair game, this seems less plausible as a Budget tactic: the government failed to admit that Brexit would stand in the way of them delivering their economic plans at the election last year, and there is no new Brexit damage to point to since.
Curiously, Starmer did not think his reset with the EU was even worth a mention in his speech – and the comments from audiences on the fringe were less focussed on the big benefits to come from that reset than on its timidity. But unlike the years when Brexit events ran hour after hour on the fringe, at Labour they were very much a minor preoccupation.
Ditto at the Conservatives. Brexit merited two mentions in Kemi Badenoch’s speech, claiming credit for delivering it, alongside same-sex marriage: “We were courageous enough to introduce same-sex marriage. And of course, brave enough to take Britain out of the European Union, honouring the biggest democratic mandate in our history. All, Conservative, achievements.” But she also pointed out the downsides: “Since Brexit and Covid the size of the Civil Service has swollen by over a third. There are now more than half a million civil servants. And have you noticed? Is government working a third better for you? I don’t think so.” That could have lain the basis for a critique of Brexit and its consequences and suggested her own version of a reset. But she had nothing to say on that – not even bothering to denounce Keir Starmer for his overtures to Europe and the imminent threat of dynamic alignment. It was left to Lord Heseltine at a European Movement fringe and to a rather beleaguered Conservative European Forum session to make the case for rebuilding relations with Europe. The panel at that event hankered after the day when their party would become “rational” again and when asked whether they had any hope of making headway by the next election, Sir Andy Street pinned his hopes on economic underperformance forcing a change in tack. Few signs yet that that is cutting through and it is pretty clear that for the remaining Conservative party conference-goers Brexit is done and they would rather not spend their valuable time talking about it (though they packed out the EU Ambassador’s drinks reception where Priti Patel was the guest speaker).
Indeed the focal point of the conference, until Kemi Badenoch unveiled her stamp duty rabbit, was her unsurprising conclusion that the UK had to withdraw from the ECHR. That seemed to raise no problems for her shadow Cabinet. It was left to the Irish Ambassador at his reception to spell out in graphic terms what that would mean for British-Irish relations (the warming of which had been celebrated by Hilary Benn at the parallel Labour event) and the future of the Belfast/Good Friday Agreement.
But what of the leaders of the insurgent parties – Reform and the Greens? Nigel Farage’s big theme was the brokenness of Britain, of despair and anger – but there was no hint that he attributed any of that to Brexit. Rather, his target was immigration. And although he has called Brexit “a disaster” in the past, Zack Polanski roused his faithful with welcomes to immigrants and refugees, support for Palestine and attacks on billionaires. The minutiae of getting back into closer alignment with the EU is not high on an eco-populist agenda.
One thing is clear: in stark contrast to the late 2010s, party conferences are not the place to go for really vigorous debates about the UK’s future relationship with Europe. The interesting question is whether and where that debate does get louder as the next election approaches.
By Jill Rutter, Senior Research Fellow, UK in a Changing Europe.