![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/05\/GettyImages-2215388932.jpg\")
\n Photo by Peter Nicholls\/Getty Images<\/p>\n
\n Photo by Peter Nicholls\/Getty Images<\/p>\n
Late-night negotiations, last-minute breakthroughs, furious accusations of \u201cselling out\u201d and \u201csurrendering\u201d. No, this is not 2018. Welcome to Keir\u2019s Starmer\u2019s EU reset and the right\u2019s backlash.<\/p>\n
In February,\u00a0Kemi Badenoch channelled her inner Gordon Brown<\/a>\u00a0and set \u201cfive tests\u201d for the big renegotiation with the EU \u2013 and breaching any one would make any potential deal unacceptable to the Conservatives. Readers of this newsletter will not be surprised to learn that, in the Tory leader\u2019s view, the deal announced on Monday (including access to a \u00a3126bn EU rearmament fund, an agri-food agreement and the reopening of e-gates for Brits, in exchange for dynamic alignment on food standards, a youth mobility scheme and an extension of existing fishing rights for EU vessels for 12 years) breaches all of them. As such, Badenoch has vowed that the Tories will reverse the deal\u2026 just as soon as they get back into power.<\/p>\n There is so much that could be said about this mindset, but let\u2019s start for a moment with the deal itself. It is neither as sensational as Labour figures trumpet nor as disastrous as the Conservatives howl. It\u2019s a series of good, solid steps in building closer UK-EU relations after Brexit. Like any trade agreement, it involves trade-offs on both sides and small wins taking on symbolic importance. (As a former trade secretary, you might think Badenoch would know all of this.) Those hoping Britain might soon rejoin the Single Market or Customs Union (or, indeed, the EU itself) will be disappointed at the lack of ambition, but perhaps reassured that something is better than nothing \u2013 \u00a39bn, which is what the government says will be added to the UK economy by 2040 as a result, is not to be sniffed at.<\/p>\n As for the concessions, well, the\u00a0Mail on Sunday\u00a0commentator Dan Hodges put it best: \u201cnone of the concessions to the EU \u2013 and they are there \u2013 come close to the concessions granted by Theresa May, Boris Johnson or Rishi Sunak\u201d.<\/p>\n This puts the Conservatives in their usual post-election quandary. As with so many policy areas (NHS waiting lists, immigration, economic stability), their attack lines at Labour are hampered by the memory of their own recent policy failures. But it is particularly potent on this issue because of how Brexit became part of the Conservative Party\u2019s core identity over the past decade, and the subsequent memories this evokes. Take David Frost and his outrage at the extension of the very fisheries deal he himself negotiated, which he tried to argue sacrifices a hypothetically better fisheries deal which sadly he wasn\u2019t able to negotiate at the time.<\/p>\n (Speaking of fish, incidentally, we should probably add some context. The UK fishing industry is worth an estimated \u00a31.1bn. It directly employs 6,800 people, around the same as the employee headcount at Harrods and just half the number of yoga instructors working in the UK. It\u2019s true that we can\u2019t feed ourselves on yoga, but given the UK exports most of its fish, it\u2019s not like we\u2019re eating what we catch anyway. And for all the talk of selling out, some parts of the UK fishing industry \u2013 Salmon Scotland, for example, which represents the Scottish salmon industry \u2013 are delighted with a deal that will make it easier for exporters to sell to Europe.)<\/p>\n But back to Kemi Badenoch. \u201cWe\u2019ve got to be a little bit more realistic and a lot less naive,\u201d she told a press conference on Monday afternoon, flanked by Victoria Atkins and Priti Patel for emotional support, shortly after saying she was gobsmacked by Starmer doing a fairly run-of-the-mill trade negotiation. This was accompanied by an awkward video of various Conservative shadow ministers explaining why they had misgivings about Starmer\u2019s deal, trying to look natural while boiling a kettle or stacking papers and speaking to camera at the same time. It was just as excruciating as it sounds \u2013 although not quite as excruciating as Boris Johnson branding Starmer \u201cthe orange ball-chewing gimp of Brussels\u201d (not an image I wanted either) and knocking Badenoch off the splash of the GB News website.<\/p>\n Subscribe to The New Statesman today from only \u00a38.99 per month<\/p>\n All of which is to say: does this look like a government-in-waiting? You could argue that no opposition licking its wounds 10 months after an election would do, but then, you could equally argue that no opposition licking its wounds 10 months after an election would be threatening to reverse the reset anytime soon.<\/p>\n Nigel Farage, incidentally, has also said he\u2019ll tear up the deal if he gets into Downing Street. But he hasn\u2019t spent the past 24 hours having the very public breakdown the Tories have (no domination fantasies or gimmicky videos of him trying to slam UK veterinary policy while closing a car door).<\/p>\n No doubt he knows he doesn\u2019t need to. Voters who still view a modest realignment of the UK\u2019s trading relationship with Europe as total Brexit betrayal are already going to vote Reform. And,\u00a0as George pointed out yesterday<\/a>, they are in a minority: two thirds of voters supporter closer relations with Europe and over half actually want to rejoin the EU. Farage has the Brexit purist vote locked in, and is now casting his net further afield. Badenoch, meanwhile, is fishing in a dwindling pool of voters who have, if their primary concern is immigration, probably already abandoned the Tories, while further alienating the majority who really do favour some common-sense cooperation.<\/p>\n Though Badenoch is claiming her approach will stop us \u201creopening the Brexit battles of the past\u201d, she more than anyone else seems stranded in 2018, when another beleaguered Conservative leader tried to dig in her heels against the combined forces of commercial reality and electoral maths. And we all know what happened to her.<\/p>\n This piece first appeared in the Morning Call newsletter; receive it every morning by subscribing on Substack\u00a0here<\/a><\/p>\n![](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/04\/TNS_master_logo.svg.svg+xml\"){kind=logo}
<\/a><\/p>\n