Badenoch’s promise might have spiked Starmer’s guns entirely were it not for the fact her path to Downing Street currently looks rather outlandish \u2014 with the Tories in third place on 18 percent of the vote and falling.<\/p>\n
What does Brussels make of these competing pressures on the British prime minister? The general sense among diplomats and officials POLITICO spoke to was that it’s not really their puzzle to solve.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe obviously keep an eye on domestic political developments in the U.K., but ultimately it’s up to Starmer himself to make the calculation of what he might or might not be able to sell back home and bring that to the table,\u201d one EU diplomat said.<\/p>\n
If Starmer can pull it all off, there may be political rewards. Despite the focus in Westminster on euroskeptic-leaning Reform voters, opinion polls suggest the wider British public do actually want a closer relationship with their European neighbours \u2014 and by quite a large margin.<\/p>\n
Pollster YouGov found on the eve of the meeting that the supposedly controversial youth mobility scheme is backed by 63 percent of voters to 17 percent opposed, despite all the noise. Similar majorities of people support aligning with EU rules on agrifoods and wider product standards, as well as a defense pact, and a common customs area. What’s more, YouGov’s numbers also suggest Labour is actually losing more voters to the pro-European Liberal Democrats and Green Party than to Reform.<\/p>\n
\u201cJust four percent of people who voted Labour last July believe the deal currently being talked about, ‘goes too far’,\u201d said Labour MP Andrew Lewin, who also chairs the independent UK Trade and Business Commission, which pushes for closer EU ties. \u201cA clear majority of voters who put my party in power are ready for a closer relationship with the European Union.\u201d<\/p>\n
Another Labour MP was less diplomatic: \u201cHistory won\u2019t look kindly on a Labour leader who flinched at the sound of Reform\u2019s drumbeat,” they said. \u201cIf the prime minister chooses to chase Farage\u2019s shadow instead of a better deal with Europe, he won\u2019t just be squandering Britain\u2019s future \u2014 he\u2019ll be volunteering for a place alongside those who sold the country a lie and called it sovereignty.\u201d<\/p>\n
How Starmer has chosen to play his hand will become clearer on Monday.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Badenoch’s promise might have spiked Starmer’s guns entirely were it not for the fact her path to Downing…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":105801,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5226],"tags":[11783,768,802,748,1194,8514,473,33,2000,299,5187,1699,21604,4884,40,807,1198,6657,5733,809,384,391,7965,47,8721,48,811,1201,16,15,1220,6863,50],"class_list":{"0":"post-105800","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-brexit","8":"tag-antonio-costa","9":"tag-borders","10":"tag-brexit","11":"tag-britain","12":"tag-budget","13":"tag-customs","14":"tag-defense","15":"tag-elections","16":"tag-eu","17":"tag-europe","18":"tag-european","19":"tag-european-union","20":"tag-euroskeptics","21":"tag-great-britain","22":"tag-immigration","23":"tag-keir-starmer","24":"tag-kemi-badenoch","25":"tag-migration","26":"tag-mobility","27":"tag-negotiations","28":"tag-nigel-farage","29":"tag-opinion","30":"tag-platforms","31":"tag-poll","32":"tag-richard-tice","33":"tag-rights","34":"tag-security","35":"tag-trade","36":"tag-uk","37":"tag-united-kingdom","38":"tag-ursula-von-der-leyen","39":"tag-visas","40":"tag-youth"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/114516583355726064","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/105800","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=105800"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/105800\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/105801"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=105800"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=105800"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=105800"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}