\u201cNet zero is the new Brexit\u201d is now Nigel Farage\u2019s mantra. But what if the new Brexit is actually Brexit?<\/p>\n
The UK and EU are moving closer to an agreement of real substance ahead of their summit on May 19, yet this will rake over the coals of the Brexit wars. With Farage and Kemi Badenoch ready to scream about surrendered sovereignty and lost opportunities, it is vital that Keir Starmer and his government get their retaliation in first. That means laying out how a closer relationship will help not just business or young people keen to travel and work in Europe, but ordinary Britons.<\/p>\n
How to do this was one of the topics discussed when the UK Trade & Business Commission independent think tank gathered an expert panel to discuss the summit today. Present were Miguel Berger, Germany\u2019s ambassador to the UK, Philip Rycroft, former permanent secretary at the short-lived Department for Exiting the EU, and Evie Aspinall, director of the British Foreign Policy Group think tank. All sounded positive about how Britain and Brussels might get closer together; all expressed varying degrees of caution about how this might be received in a country that voted Leave less than nine years ago.<\/p>\n
It seems clear that three things will emerge from the May 19 get-together. First is the much-discussed and largely uncontroversial defence and security pact that will let Britain share in massive investment to protect the continent and help Ukraine in the face of Donald Trump\u2019s abdication of responsibility.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Second is a communiqu\u00e9 laying out a package of things Britain and the European Union think they are close to agreement on \u2013 including easing border red tape, a youth mobility scheme and closer co-operation on energy trading. Both sides expect these to be tied up by the end of 2025, leaving 2026 free for a welcome renegotiation of Boris Johnson and Lord Frost\u2019s botched Trade And Co-Operation Agreement (TCA).<\/p>\n
But third is a cause of nerves \u2013 an agreement to continue with current fishing arrangements already seen by fishers as going back on pre-Brexit promises that leaving the EU would give European boats less access to UK waters. This, and the fact that aligning with EU standards to ease red tape means agreeing to regulations Britain had no part in shaping, will be the focus of the Brexiteer attacks.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe sorts of changes that are proposed will have some political cost in the UK context,\u201d said Rycroft. \u201cWe already have the fisher folk kicking up about the possibility of a rollover of the deal that was done in the TCA. They don\u2019t like extending that for another two or three years.\u201d Alignment, he added, \u201cwould mean the UK parliament passing an awful lot of legislation over which it has had very limited influence, and this will be tough. It will be seen as running away from Brexit, and there\u2019s no easy path out of that.\u201d<\/p>\n
Aspinall noted that while there is broad polling support for closer relations, \u201cthere are specific issues \u2013 migration being probably the number one and fishing rights the second \u2013 where I think it has a potential to become quite a toxic debate\u2026 if I was in government, I\u2019d be particularly nervous about [those]\u00a0at this point in time.\u201d<\/p>\n
Berger believes that for the UK and EU to sell the reset deals, they must convince voters that they will \u201chelp reduce prices in the supermarket. This is the message we need to send to consumers\u201d.\u00a0<\/p>\n
On fisheries, he hopes that making it easier for British fishers to sell in the EU will ease some of their fears. \u201cIt\u2019s about quotas and access for boats but it\u2019s also important to underline that more than 70% of the fish which comes from British fishers is sold in the European market,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
The task for Starmer, then, is selling Britain on the idea that the trade-offs make financial sense for individual households. That\u2019s not as easy as it sounds. For one thing, Rycroft concedes, nothing that is going to be set in train on May 19 is going to come anywhere near to filling the 4% hole in GDP made by Brexit. In terms of a potential uplift, \u201cI\u2019ve seen a figure of \u00a32bn with more exports on the food side,\u201d he said. \u201cSo you\u2019re talking significant numbers, but\u00a04% of GDP is a lot more than that.\u201d<\/p>\n
Then there is the fact \u2013 unaddressed by the UK Trade & Business Commission panel \u2013 that when it comes to salesmanship, Starmer is closer to Gordon Brown than Tony Blair. The prime minister may be many things, but a great communicator is not one of them. While on the other side, said Rycroft, \u201cthere are plenty of politicians who will seize on any opportunity to make a fuss [about]\u00a0what they see as a reneging on the Brexit process. So this will be politically hard fought, but it\u2019s the right direction of travel.\u201d<\/p>\n
The ultimate tragedy, of course, would be if Starmer, having restricted the possibilities of deeper and more rewarding co-operation through his red lines, proves unable to sell Britain on even these modest proposals. It\u2019s far from a given when the gains are not vast and Farage, as looks likely to be proved at next week\u2019s local elections, is a formidable opponent.<\/p>\n
The Brexit wars are about to start again; and once again, the pro-European side cannot afford to lose.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"\u201cNet zero is the new Brexit\u201d is now Nigel Farage\u2019s mantra. But what if the new Brexit is…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":50345,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5226],"tags":[802,748,2000,299,5187,1699,4884,807,16,15],"class_list":{"0":"post-50344","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-keir-starmer","16":"tag-uk","17":"tag-united-kingdom"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/114400619800756495","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/50344","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=50344"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/50344\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/50345"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=50344"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=50344"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=50344"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}