At a summit in London yesterday, the United Kingdom and European Union unveiled new deals on food exports while also agreeing to continue talks on other key issues like youth mobility and electricity trading. They also agreed to a defense and security pact that, among other things, will pave the way for the U.K. to gain access to a €150 billion EU defense fund, to which Britain would also contribute. (Reuters)
Our Take
When U.K. PM Keir Starmer took office last July, one of the biggest open questions about his agenda was the extent to which he would seek closer relations with the EU. Popular opinion now broadly considers Brexit to have been a mistake, but the consensus in the country is also that as a done deal, the divisive debates over it are better left to the past. As such, it is politically untenable to float the idea of recreating anything that approaches the former relationship with the EU, let alone rejoining the bloc.
So while it was clear that Starmer, the leader of the center-left Labour Party, would look to reset relations with Brussels, speculation was rife last year about how quickly he would move and how far he would go to do so. Based on the summit yesterday, more than 10 months after Starmer took office, the answers are: not very quickly and not very far.