In June, it will be 10 years since the Brexit referendum. At the time, I was a political advisor to the relatively new Labour MP for Holborn & St Pancras.\u00a0<\/p>\n
The day after, as the dust settled and the result became clear, I remember being sat in Keir\u2019s garden discussing what this all meant \u2013 for Labour, for Britain, and for our place in the world. Suffice to say, neither of us was best pleased with the result. Keir least of all.<\/p>\n
After a little rumination on the shortcomings of the Remain campaign, he sketched out what he felt should come next.<\/p>\n
First, Keir saw that the referendum had exposed something beyond people\u2019s views on the EU. It had shown that for millions of Britons, the country was not working for them \u2013 that control had indeed been lost, and that it was the job of politicians to deliver the change the country was crying out for.\u00a0<\/p>\n
READ MORE: \u2018The government\u2019s UK-Ukraine defence deal has promise, but must go further to keep Europe and the UK safe\u2019<\/a><\/p>\n Second, he saw that Britain\u2019s national interest lay in minimising the economic, cultural and diplomatic dislocation that would inevitably follow our exit from the EU: to be outside the EU, but close to it. To protect British businesses, supply chains and employment standards. To cooperate wherever we could on trade, security, culture and much more, and \u2013 as he would emphasise as shadow Brexit secretary \u2013 to prevent a hard border in Northern Ireland.\u00a0<\/p>\n In time, this approach would come to be known as \u2018making Brexit work\u2019. But it mattered for little as we watched from the irrelevance of opposition as successive Conservative prime ministers struggled to drive through their own visions of the post-Brexit world. Worse still, those governments also saw their domestic ambitions crushed on the altar of \u201cgetting Brexit done\u201d.\u00a0 That is perhaps the silent tragedy of the last decade \u2013 that the big reforms this country was crying out for, and the referendum had exposed, went unaddressed.<\/p>\n And so, when Labour was elected in 2024, it was no surprise to me that Keir set about rebuilding a new, stronger and closer relationship with the EU. Within a few months, the prime minister had hosted the first UK-EU summit, where we agreed a Common Understanding and a new framework for UK-EU relations. It includes a new security and defence partnership, because, as the prime minister has said, there is no British security without Europe, and no European security without Britain.\u00a0<\/p>\n It also includes a mandate to negotiate a sanitary and phytosanitary (SPS), or agrifood, agreement. This will materially reduce burdens, barriers and costs for cross-border trade on food, drink and much more. It will also go some way to addressing the absurdity that, since Brexit, agrifood exports to the EU are down 21 per cent.<\/p>\n Become a friend of LabourList<\/a> and join our community. Our friends support our vital non-factional work and get access to exclusive content and events.\u00a0<\/p>\n We are also negotiating access to the EU\u2019s internal electricity market, which will cut bills for businesses and consumers, and we are close to agreeing a youth experience scheme, which will allow young people to live, work and train abroad.\u00a0<\/p>\n I am also delighted that we have agreed associate membership of the Erasmus+ programme from 2027, which will benefit over 100,000 young people from all backgrounds, overturning one of the most short-sighted and self-defeating decisions of the last government\u2019s Brexit deal.<\/p>\n The progress this Labour government has made in the last 18 months has its roots in the closer relationship Keir sketched out in our discussion in his garden 10 years ago. So when, last September, he asked me to be a minister in the Cabinet Office and to work alongside Nick Thomas-Symonds on this hugely ambitious EU reset, I knew instinctively the destination he had in mind.<\/p>\n Because the Common Understanding we are already negotiating \u2013 SPS, electricity sharing and youth experience \u2013 is just the start. There will be another UK-EU summit this summer, with new and more ambitious negotiating mandates. And there will be legislation before parliament to deliver this shortly.<\/p>\n Progressives should welcome this \u2013 and be under no illusion that we are no longer the Britain of the Brexit years. We want a closer relationship with the EU.\u00a0 We want deeper integration. We want to work with, not against, our EU partners. And we will choose \u2013 as is our sovereign right \u2013 to align with the single market where it is in our national interest.<\/p>\n Subscribe here to our daily newsletter<\/a> roundup of Labour news, analysis and comment\u2013 and follow us on TikTok<\/a>, Bluesky<\/a>, WhatsApp<\/a>, X<\/a> and Facebook<\/a>. You can also write to our editor<\/a> to share your thoughts on our stories and share your own. The best letters are published every Sunday.<\/p>\n This new partnership with the EU will be in line with the manifesto we were elected on \u2013 and it will help repair the unnecessary, national self-harm of the deals negotiated in the last decade. Better still, it will come alongside, not instead of, tackling the forgotten issues of the last decade \u2013 whether on special educational needs and disabilities, child poverty, workers\u2019 rights or planning.<\/p>\n I don\u2019t underestimate the scale of the task ahead of us in forging a new relationship with the EU. Those who have shaped Brexit over the last decade will not see it remoulded without a fight. But it is a prize worth fighting for \u2013 economically, culturally and diplomatically. And it is a prize the prime minister has had in mind since the day after the referendum result some 10 years ago.<\/p>\n This article will be published in an upcoming edited collection from the Fabian Society and Labour Movement for Europe, \u2018Pressing Reset \u2013 Our future with the EU\u2019.<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n SHARE: If you have anything to share that we should be looking into or publishing about this story \u2013 or any other topic involving Labour\u2013 contact us (strictly anonymously if you wish) at [email\u00a0protected]<\/a>.
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