Kier Starmer’s visit to Brussels and his meeting with Ursula Von der Leyen apparently went well but the press release afterward was bland, to say the least. They “agreed to strengthen the relationship between the United Kingdom and the European Union” and a few other anodyne things but not much more. The statement also said they “agreed to take forward this agenda of strengthened cooperation at pace over the coming months, starting with defining together the areas in which strengthened cooperation would be mutually beneficial, such as the economy, energy, security, and resilience, in full respect of their internal procedures and institutional prerogatives."
And they agreed to meet again this autumn.
It was apparently just talking about talks, scoping the areas to be discussed in the coming weeks and months between officials, with some frustration on the EU side that Starmer didn’t set out what he wanted more clearly.
The FT says his red lines remain in place.
“We are open to strengthening EU-UK relations,” added an EU diplomat. “But the red lines remain. The UK wants to stay outside the single market and the customs union. The ball is in the UK’s court. What do they really want?”
Starmer reiterated in the press briefing that “free movement is a red line” and I think we can identify this as the main and perhaps the only reason why he keeps saying Britain is not going back into the single market or the customs union.
His caution is perhaps understandable if, as he seems to believe, the Youth Mobility Scheme (YMS) is somehow a Trojan horse for freedom of movement. When you think about it, if that particular red line is breached, who could object to the other three freedoms of goods, services and capital? Labour has already conceded the principle of continuing to accept a lot of EU law, and after reading an explanatory note by UK in Changing Europe about an SPS (Veterinary Services) agreement it seems clear we will have to agree to dynamic alignment on food standards if we want to cut red tape.
Resisting a YMS is a no-brainer for the prime minister, because once that is accepted, other groups will demand something similar. And what reason could he offer to deny them something he's already agreed to? However, he will get nothing from Brussels without a YMS and it may be the start of a slow creep back to membership of the EU.
The Guardian reports:
"David McAllister, a German centre-right MEP and ally of von der Leyen’s, said he hoped Starmer would be open to an EU-UK youth mobility agreement, adding: 'In the end, the UK government will also have to be judged on its willingness to compromise on this issue [YMS] with regard to other areas of negotiation.'
"One of the early goals that is being sought by both the UK and EU is a new security and foreign policy pact, but EU officials cautioned they are waiting for detailed plans on what London wants on all aspects of the relationship.
"'It is really in Starmer’s hands,' an EU diplomat said. 'We would like to normalise further, but we are not going to beg you.' The diplomat argued that the Labour government was 'still very uneasy to embrace the new relationship with the EU because they are afraid' of being criticised by the Reform leader, Nigel Farage, and the Conservatives."
There is I am sorry to say, the ring of truth about that last bit.
Lord Frost, the man whose negotiating 'skills' brought us all the issues we are currently experiencing, has a Telegraph article attacking Labour's stance but which inadvertently makes the case for rejoining the EU. He writes:
"We concede things in the EU’s interest in return for … conceding things in the EU’s interest. It’s a pretty strange negotiation in which we make all the substantive concessions in return for nothing more than a better atmosphere and an annual summit – things that can easily be withdrawn if the EU decides down the line it wants to turn the screw on us once again.
"But of course the Government doesn’t see it like that. For Labour, the EU is a beautiful progressive project in which national interests are set aside for the common good. Being outside it is already a kind of failure."
The first paragraph is ironic because this is what he did in 2019 and in 2020 and why we have such a one-sided deal and a customs/regulatory border in our own country. The EU held all the cards then, as they do now and will in the future. The bloc is seven times our size, for heaven's sake!!
And the second paragraph is exactly why we should be in. The world is in flames across Ukraine and the Middle East precisely because national interests haven't been put aside for the common good. By comparison to most areas, the EU is an oasis of calm and rationality.
US Election
In other news from over the Atlantic, we got sight of a partially redacted 165-page court filing in the Trump election interference case in Washington DC, setting out the full extent of the former president’s crimes in the run-up to 6 January 2021. It is packed with references to Trump’s repeated claims that the 2020 election was rigged against him.
If you recall, his campaign launched over 60 legal challenges to the results in the seven swing states of Nevada, Wisconsin, Michigan, Georgia, Pennsylvania, North Carolina, and Arizona. They failed in every one.
Now we learn that there has finally been a successful trial, culminating in a 9-year prison sentence for an election clerk in Colorado for tampering with voting machines after the 2020 presidential election.
The problem for Trump is that she was a Republican MAGA supporter and not a Democrat.
A judge sentenced Tina Peters, a former Colorado county clerk, to nine years behind bars for leading a voting system data-breach scheme inspired by the rampant false claims that fraud altered the 2020 presidential outcome. https://t.co/wDdNvrtulj
— The Associated Press (@AP) October 3, 2024
In the court filing by the way, prosecutors noted that although he claimed there was widespread and unprecedented fraud in the 2020 election (“nobody has seen anything like it before”), the only election results he challenged were in the swing states he lost.
In states that he won, or lost by a significant margin, he never suggested there were any problems. Odd that. And it’s worth noting that all the witnesses, and there are a lot, who have provided evidence against him are Republicans, including many who worked alongside Trump.
