British Prime Minister Keir Starmer said he will pursue greater access to the European Union’s single market, setting up a political fight with Reform UK party chief Nigel Farage that he hopes will help turn his government’s fortunes around this year.
“If it’s in our national interest to have even closer alignment with the Single Market, then we should consider that, we should go that far,” Starmer told the BBC on Sunday. The United Kingdom is better placed to gain more market access than form a customs union with the bloc because it avoids unraveling trade agreements brokered with the United States and India last year, he said.
It marks Starmer’s strongest language yet on his desire to soften Britain’s Brexit deal, nearly a decade on from the referendum, and follows a growing debate in the final weeks of 2025 about forming a customs union with the EU in a bid to revive the British economy. Even Health Secretary Wes Streeting and Deputy Prime Minister David Lammy — two likely leadership hopefuls if Labour challenges Starmer — recently suggested they’d be supportive of such a move, despite an election promise not to do so.