Throughout Keir Starmer\u2019s life, a recent fawning profile ran, he has \u2018worked to safeguard the value of justice and democracy\u2019, from fighting the death penalty in Caribbean courts as a young human-rights lawyer, to taking on Vladimir Putin by representing Alexander Litvinenko\u2019s widow. \u2018Those same principles,\u2019 the profile gushes, \u2018have guided him since he became the UK\u2019s Prime Minister.\u2019<\/p>\n
The author of these words? Ursula von der Leyen, the European Commission President, who had the dubious honour of penning the Prime Minister\u2019s entry for Time\u2019s annual list of the world\u2019s 100 most influential people. She is glad, she claims, \u2018to have someone with Starmer\u2019s dedication and strong principles as a partner\u2019.<\/p>\n
On 19 May, Starmer will host the first UK-EU summit since Brexit. An announcement is expected on defence cooperation, alongside an outline for future negotiations. Labour\u2019s manifesto promised to \u2018reset the relationship between Britain and the EU\u2019 and \u2018deepen ties with our European friends\u2019. This is one area in which the Prime Minister has kept his promise to the electorate.<\/p>\n
A few short years ago, Starmer was Jeremy Corbyn\u2019s shadow Brexit secretary, pushing Labour into backing a second referendum. After voters rejected that, his Europhilia faded as he sought to win back the Red Wall. But few doubt he still believes that Brexit was an act of national self-harm.<\/p>\n
Starmer\u2019s hope is that he can overcome lingering resentment and improve post-Brexit arrangements as the perfidious Tories never could. Yet his hand across the Channel so far seems less a drawing together of two equal, sovereign allies than the steady unpicking of our hard-won independence.<\/p>\n
The Prime Minister has set out three red lines for his \u2018reset\u2019: no customs union membership, no rejoining the single market and no freedom of movement.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Throughout Keir Starmer\u2019s life, a recent fawning profile ran, he has \u2018worked to safeguard the value of justice…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":64177,"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-64176","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\/114429532883323402","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/64176","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=64176"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/64176\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/64177"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=64176"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=64176"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=64176"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}