Yet they’ve given few details other than that they’re prepared to align with EU rules in some — as yet unnamed — sectors. Starmer is also sticking by Labour’s manifesto red lines on joining a customs union or accepting EU freedom of movement, limiting his room for maneuver significantly.
The first signs aren’t exactly encouraging. EU officials have privately rebuffed one proposal by U.K. negotiators that Britain be allowed to join the EU single market for goods only — without signing up to free movement of people. U.K. officials say the plan is just one of a number being considered.
‘Evasive and waffly’
British lawmakers are also frustrated at the lack of detail from their government.
The U.K. parliament’s Foreign Affairs Committee last week accused ministers of being “evasive and waffly,” with its chair, Labour’s Emily Thornberry, declaring that the government “has been unwilling to provide clarity about its approach or acknowledge trade-offs, hiding behind generalities, shifting positions and vague ambitions.”
In Brussels, one senior EU official wondered aloud earlier this month: “How revolutionary can it be without revisiting their red lines?”
Jannike Wachowiak, a researcher at the UK in a Changing Europe think tank, said the two sides could be heading for a stand-off.
“On the EU side, there’s a bit of a wait-and-see perspective at the moment, because they don’t quite know where the U.K. is going politically,” she said Tuesday.
“I think there we’ve got a real risk that there might be some sort of standoff between the two sides. It depends also on who’s in charge on the U.K. side but … I think there’s a risk that the U.K. comes in with some very ambitious but unrealistic proposals, and that the EU isn’t particularly interested, and that the summit reveals those tensions.”