{"id":418326,"date":"2025-09-12T11:32:13","date_gmt":"2025-09-12T11:32:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/418326\/"},"modified":"2025-09-12T11:32:13","modified_gmt":"2025-09-12T11:32:13","slug":"keir-starmers-top-eu-negotiator-makes-huge-brexit-admission-politics-news","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/418326\/","title":{"rendered":"Keir Starmer’s top EU negotiator makes huge Brexit admission | Politics | News"},"content":{"rendered":"

The minister who has helped lead Sir Keir Starmer<\/a>‘s renewed ties with the European Union<\/a> says he does not believe the UK will reverse Brexit<\/a> and re-enter the bloc in his lifetime. Nick Thomas-Symonds, the minister for EU relations, said his focus is on building a “new strategic partnership” with Brussels.<\/p>\n

The strengthening of UK-EU connections has been a priority for Labour since Sir Keir’s arrival in Number 10 last summer. Britain and the EU signed off on a wide-ranging reset deal in May<\/a> as part of a shift to move closer to the bloc. Sir Keir described the deal as a “new era” in the UK-EU relationship and a “win-win” for both parties, however Brexiteers claimed it was a “surrender” to Brussels.<\/p>\n

When asked whether he could see the reversal of Brexit<\/a> during his lifetime, Mr Thomas-Symonds told the Guardian<\/a>‘s Weekly podcast: “I can’t.”<\/p>\n

The PM’s ally continued: “What I can say is that the work I have been doing with the democratic mandate from the 2024 general election is building a closer, more constructive relationship.\u201d<\/p>\n

“What I\u2019m about now, having reset the relationship, is building this new strategic partnership,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n

He reiterated Labour has “pledged” not to rejoin the single market or the customs union or re-introduce freedom of movement, adding “that remains”.<\/p>\n

Critics loudly voiced concerns over the reset deal, with Shadow Foreign Secretary Priti Patel<\/a> warning Labour looks set to “start the process of reintroducing free movement by the back door”.<\/p>\n

The deal, signed at a summit in London, included allowing more British travellers to use passport e-gates when going on holiday to Europe, an agreement on animal and plant product stands and a new security and defence partnership.<\/p>\n

However, a \u201cyouth experience scheme\u201d allowing young Britons to study and live in Europe and allowing European fishing trawlers a further 12 years\u2019 access to British waters were met with particularly fierce criticism.<\/p>\n

Improved UK-EU relations has seen the UK and France<\/a> launch a pilot of the so-called ‘One in, One out’ migrants return deal<\/a>.<\/p>\n

The Government is close to agreeing such a deal with Germany<\/a>, reports say.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The minister who has helped lead Sir Keir Starmer‘s renewed ties with the European Union says he does…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":418327,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5226],"tags":[802,5322,748,2000,299,5187,1699,36,1824,4884,807,528,810,11508,16,15,1220],"class_list":{"0":"post-418326","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-brexit","8":"tag-brexit","9":"tag-brexit-news","10":"tag-britain","11":"tag-eu","12":"tag-europe","13":"tag-european","14":"tag-european-union","15":"tag-france","16":"tag-germany","17":"tag-great-britain","18":"tag-keir-starmer","19":"tag-labour-party","20":"tag-nick-thomas-symonds","21":"tag-politics-section","22":"tag-uk","23":"tag-united-kingdom","24":"tag-ursula-von-der-leyen"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/115191109669476782","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/418326","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=418326"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/418326\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/418327"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=418326"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=418326"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=418326"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}