{"id":112772,"date":"2025-05-18T22:15:25","date_gmt":"2025-05-18T22:15:25","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/112772\/"},"modified":"2025-05-18T22:15:25","modified_gmt":"2025-05-18T22:15:25","slug":"starmers-post-brexit-deal-under-threat-from-eu-fishing-demands","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/112772\/","title":{"rendered":"Starmer\u2019s post-Brexit deal under threat from EU fishing demands"},"content":{"rendered":"

Sir Keir Starmer\u2019s reset with the European Union have gone down to the wire, as Brussels holds firm on its demand to tie a food export deal to long-term access to British fisheries.<\/p>\n

Talks have continued late into the night, with EU officials threatening to collapse the deal unless the prime minister agreed to give Brussels greater leverage in future negotiations on fish.<\/p>\n

British officials remained confident a deal would be struck in time for the first post-Brexit<\/a> UK-EU summit in London on Monday. Agreement has already been reached on subjects including co-operation on defence<\/a>, migration and the principle of a youth mobility deal.<\/p>\n

\"Four<\/p>\n

European leaders including Donald Tusk, President Zelensky, President Macron and Starmer have been working closely together towards peace in Ukraine<\/p>\n

LEON NEAL VIA AP<\/p>\n

In a surprise to British negotiators, however, the EU is trying to use Starmer\u2019s desire to announce a deal at the summit to force a concession that would make access to fisheries the exp\u00adlicit price of an agreement to ease checks on UK food exports to Europe.<\/p>\n

British officials acknowledged the attempt to link a deal on food standards to one on fish was the main outstanding problem, but insisted Starmer would not sign an agreement that was not in the national interest.<\/p>\n

The prime minister is ready to face down accusations of \u201cBrexit betrayal\u201d from opponents who have called Monday\u2019s meeting the \u201csurrender summit\u201d. He told The Times on Saturday that voters were looking \u201cforward not backwards\u201d and did not want to \u201crelitigate the last nine years\u201d of rows over Europe.<\/p>\n

He will instead try to sell the deal on \u201cpragmatic grounds\u201d of jobs and security. Senior government figures dismissed attempts to fight battles on issues such as the European Court of Justice as out of touch with voters who increasingly favour closer ties.<\/p>\n

Keir Starmer: Shouting at EU is not in the UK\u2019s national interest<\/b><\/a><\/p>\n

David Lammy, the foreign secretary, said the meeting would show \u201ca new era in UK-EU relations has begun\u201d after the battles of the Brexit years. Ministers promised that a deal with the EU would improve growth, lower energy bills and improve border security.<\/p>\n

A food standards deal on \u201csanitary and phytosanitary\u201d regulations is seen by Britain as an important benefit of the deal, easing onerous veterinary checks that are blamed for a 21 per cent fall in agricultural exports to the EU since Brexit. <\/p>\n

Nick Thomas-Symonds, Britain\u2019s chief negotiator with the EU, told Times Radio on Sunday that it would have \u201chuge advantages\u201d for British businesses when food was \u201cliterally rotting on our border\u201d waiting for approvals.<\/p>\n

Labour\u2019s manifesto promised to seek such a deal and Thomas-Symonds said he had been \u201cnegotiating very hard\u201d, signalling that Britain was prepared to sign up to future EU food standards rules as the price of agreement.<\/p>\n

\"Nick<\/p>\n

Nick Thomas-Symonds<\/p>\n

THOMAS KRYCH\/ZUMA PRESS<\/p>\n

The sticking point has been an EU demand for an explicit link to an agreement on continued access for European fishing boats<\/a> to British waters. Britain has been prepared to extend existing fishing quotas, currently 75 per cent of pre-Brexit levels, for another four years. The EU is stipulating that any future attempt to renegotiate quotas would allow it to reopen the food standards deal, meaning it could threaten to reimpose border checks<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\u2022 EU \u2018reset\u2019 could put back Britain\u2019s freedom to develop gene-edited crops<\/b><\/a><\/p>\n

Thomas-Symonds said Britain was prepared to agree to follow future EU directives on food standards as the price of reduced border checks, with ultimate oversight from the European Court of Justice. He said parliament would be given a say in following future rules, which would be \u201csovereign decisions\u201d for Britain. \u201cWhere we think it is in our national interest to align on common standards we will, and we\u2019ll do it because it is about jobs growth and opportunity,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Alex Burghart, the shadow Cabinet Office minister, said this \u201cdynamic alignment\u201d with EU rules was a \u201csurrender of Britain\u2019s sovereignty\u201d. <\/p>\n

Thomas-Symonds dismissed such \u201cideological\u201d concerns. He said: \u201cWe are a high standards jurisdiction, so is the EU, it\u2019s about pragmatic choices to make sure that businesses can trade more easily.\u201d<\/p>\n

A deal on security co-operation is expected to be announced that could lead to British troops operating alongside EU forces, and more intelligence sharing on illegal migration as Starmer seeks to make good on his promise to \u201csmash the gangs\u201d. Britain will also agree in principle to negotiate a youth mobility deal<\/a> allowing Europeans aged 18-30 to live and work in the UK.<\/p>\n

Britain wants a cap on numbers of about 100,000 a year and a time limit on visas, while the EU is resisting such a cap. Thomas-Symonds said the scheme would have to be \u201csmart and controlled\u201d and must be consistent with the objective of bringing down net migration.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Sir Keir Starmer\u2019s reset with the European Union have gone down to the wire, as Brussels holds firm…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":112773,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5226],"tags":[802,748,2000,299,5187,1699,4884,16,15],"class_list":{"0":"post-112772","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-brexit","8":"tag-brexit","9":"tag-britain","10":"tag-eu","11":"tag-europe","12":"tag-european","13":"tag-european-union","14":"tag-great-britain","15":"tag-uk","16":"tag-united-kingdom"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/114531147757055429","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/112772","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=112772"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/112772\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/112773"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=112772"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=112772"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=112772"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}