British Prime Minister Keir Starmer has indicated that the British must accept the compromises required to maintain a close relationship with the European Union, writes Politico.
Speaking in London, Starmer said that Brexit has caused significant damage to the British economy and warned that friction with the bloc must be reduced in order to achieve economic recovery.
Starmer’s remarks follow talks between London and Brussels, which have been in doubt about allowing Britain to participate in the EU’s 150 billion European arms purchase program, and the main source of disagreement in the negotiations has been the opinion on how much the British should pay to participate in the program.
In a speech on the 1st of December, the British Prime Minister defended the national budget adopted in late November and insisted that he has a long-term plan. Starmer said
the most important thing the British can do now for growth and business is to reduce inflation
and maintain a confident market that would allow economic stability to be restored. However, Britain also needs to face the truth – the post-Brexit agreement with Brussels has significantly damaged the country’s economy. “For economic renewal we have to keep reducing frictions. We have to keep moving towards a closer relationship with the EU, and we have to be grown-up about that, to accept that that will require trade-offs,” Starmer said.
Starmer stressed that the changes to the tax system had been fair, necessary and fundamentally valuable for growth, but for the first time publicly admitted that ministers had considered, and then abandoned, the idea of a major increase in income tax.
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