{"id":943410,"date":"2026-05-07T08:42:16","date_gmt":"2026-05-07T08:42:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/943410\/"},"modified":"2026-05-07T08:42:16","modified_gmt":"2026-05-07T08:42:16","slug":"brexit-fury-erupts-as-keir-starmer-plots-closer-ties-to-eu-after-bruising-local-election-politics-news","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/943410\/","title":{"rendered":"Brexit fury erupts as Keir Starmer plots closer ties to EU after bruising local election | Politics | News"},"content":{"rendered":"

Keir Starmer is set to announce closer ties to the EU as part of his plan to save his premiership after bruising local elections. The Prime Minister’s latest unpicking of Brexit will be his fresh attempts to fend off a leadership challenge after an expected bloodbath at polling booths on Thursday.<\/p>\n

In a speech next week, Sir Keir will say closer relations with the bloc are crucial to tackling the cost of living<\/a> crisis caused by the Iran war.<\/p>\n

A No 10 source said: “Building a closer relationship with the EU is crucial not just for economic growth, but also cutting the cost of living. We cannot afford to ignore this.”<\/p>\n

The Prime Minister is drawing up plans for the speech after the anticipated loss of over 1,000 seats for the Labour Party at local elections in England, and poor results in Scotland and Wales.<\/p>\n

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Sir Keir will argue the Iran war has shown Britain “cannot afford to ignore” the potential benefits of closer ties with Brussels.<\/p>\n

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But reports suggest that he will insist that his Brexit<\/a> red lines, which state there will be no return to free movement and that Britain will not rejoin the single market or customs union, will remain.<\/p>\n

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Several Cabinet ministers are privately said to have been advocating joining an EU customs union, something the Labour leader explicitly ruled out.<\/p>\n

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It comes as Sir Keir has been warned the UK will have to make yearly payments of \u00a31 billion into European budgets for the first time since Brexit to secure closer ties.<\/p>\n

European Union<\/a> negotiators insist the money is a prerequisite for greater access to its single market.<\/p>\n

But UK ministers see the demand for cash as a starting position for talks.<\/p>\n

The Daily Express Give Us A Proper Brexit crusade has called for Britain to leave the European Convention on Human Rights, slash red tape for businesses and enforce a 12-mile exclusion zone around the UK for British vessels only.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Keir Starmer is set to announce closer ties to the EU as part of his plan to save…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":943411,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5226],"tags":[802,5322,748,2000,26311,299,5187,1699,4884,807,33721,16,15],"class_list":{"0":"post-943410","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-eu-relations","13":"tag-europe","14":"tag-european","15":"tag-european-union","16":"tag-great-britain","17":"tag-keir-starmer","18":"tag-local-election","19":"tag-uk","20":"tag-united-kingdom"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/116532408984032703","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/943410","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=943410"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/943410\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/943411"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=943410"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=943410"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=943410"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}