The speculation varies between him ‘betraying’ Brexit by taking us back towards membership of the EU (something he explicitly denies) and him wasting his time because the EU won’t allow Labour to have their own attempt at cherry-picking. They cannot both be true, although some Brexiteers seem to think they are. I lean towards the latter, as you know.
Starmer risks neither side trusting him. Remainers worry that he won’t take us back into the single market while Brexiteers worry that he will. Perhaps he thinks it's a necessary one in which he becomes bracketed with past Tory leaders where membership of the EU is not so much a noble and worthwhile objective or an evil empire but simply as a tool to help get elected.
We might be able to understand what he could achieve by reading an excellent guide from the think tank UK in a Changing Europe (UKICE), which you can see HERE.
The EU definitely don’t see the review of the TCA scheduled for 2025 as an opportunity to rewrite it, as Maros Sefcovic confirmed in June. The EU Vice-President Maros Sefcovic actually said the EU wanted the review to take place a year later than previously thought, in 2026, and warned that it would only cover the “implementation” of the deal rather than wholesale changes.
He told the EU-UK forum: “This article [in the TCA] doesn’t constitute a commitment to reopen the TCA or to negotiate supplementary agreements. The TCA will simply not be able to recreate any kind of notion of the single market.” Stefan Fuehring, head of the Commission’s unit on the TCA, said changes to the deal would be a “very long shot”.
And several people have bluntly and perhaps a little unkindly pointed out that the EU is bound to ask what’s in it for them. The Commission have no mandate from member states to propose any changes or start any renegotiations and despite Brexiteers' long-held belief that Brussels is all-powerful, they cannot do anything without instructions from the European Council.
The UKICE report sets out three potential routes that Starmer might obtain in the TCA review, a minimal technical check on how the TCA is being implemented, a more ambitious attempt to realise more of the TCA’s potential and a very optimistic (maximalist) bid to widen or deepen the scope of the TCA by adding new elements which are not foreseen by the treaty.
The authors (Joël Reland and Jannike Wachowiak) say the EU has a clear minimalist position: just a short, technical review of the treaty’s implementation in 2026 based on "a general satisfaction with the TCA, which it considers to be working well."
Forget all the Johnson/Frost bloviation about the TCA being a great deal for Britain, the sheer asymmetry is obvious. We hear nothing but complaints and irritation from businesses and industries the length and breadth of this county while the European side are 'generally satisfied'. Britain is now in a far worse position than it was in 2016. This is what seven years of Tory incompetence has brought us to.
We are in a worse position not because of any fundamental change in circumstances. What has transpired was both predictable and predicted by remainers, the difference now is that everybody can see we need the EU far more than they need us. There is little that Britain produces that can't be obtained inside the bloc, or elsewhere in the world or that consumers can't do without.
Add to that what UKICE calls 'Brexit fatigue' in Brussels, meaning that the other member states and the Commission are tired of being used and having to manage a needy and demanding teenager, one that they no longer trust. Both major parties have struggled with Euroscepticism, prompting British governments of both colours to seek unique opt-outs, rebates, special status, exceptions and exemptions as a member, but it’s clear we are just as needy when we’re out.
Moreover, the EU now has a long list of higher priorities. What would you do?
We seem to think diplomats in Brussels are sitting around waiting to offer us bespoke deals left, right and centre. The sorry truth is they’re over Brexit and have plenty of other fish to fry.
I see no enthusiasm and even a disincentive on their part. To offer Britain some easements will only encourage the political parties here to keep on coming back again and again with more requests to do side deals, modify an article or two, extend this that or the other as we struggle to make sense of it all. I think they would be more inclined to say you're either IN or OUR, make up your mind - please.
To add to the fevered atmosphere, an independent non-governmental report on EU enlargement was published in the last few days and picked up by The Times and misinterpreted as some sort of plot to hook the UK back into the EU's keepnet.
Our report today on reforming the EU in light of enlargement is being grossly misrepresented in UK media.1) It is an independent report, mandated by the two Europe ministers, not the official position by the French or German government or the EU. https://t.co/Ag9bfRq7gu— Nicolai von Ondarza (@NvOndarza) September 19, 2023
The German ambassador to the UK Miguel Berger was quick to point out that the report was merely "a contribution to the debate about Enlargement & Reform, not on EU/UK relations" but the damage was already done.
The Daily Mail was one pro-Brexit outlet suggesting you can't trust Starmer on Brexit because he'll take us back in, quoting an EU Expert, Wolfgang Munchau (a former associate editor of the Financial Times), who said the Labour leader's plans were "based on a delusion that it was possible to stay out of the single market and the customs union and get a better deal."
In other words, the only way to make Brexit work is to abandon it. He's right of course.
