This week in Brexitland, September 21, 2023
Keir Starmer will get very little from the EU if he tries to “Make Brexit Work” and get a better deal. But what he’s doing should still scare the hell of out the Tories. Here’s why
As the latest tranche of Starmer’s bid to “Make Brexit Work”, he’s announced that he will try and get a better trade deal than the one Boris Johnson got from the EU. I don’t actually have a problem with him doing this. As I’ve said many times before, I think Labour having a go at trying to make something of Brexit (and obviously failing) is an important step in reversing the worst of Brexit eventually. This is something that, sadly, has to happen.
I also believe the Tories rejoicing in him bringing this up are making yet another mistake. They think most of the country thinks about Brexit in the same way that they do: as a holy and divine mission ordained by God to bring bounty to England’s green and pleasant land. A sacred project needing to be constantly saved from the hounds of hell who would wish to deny us such a utopia. Instead of the reality of the situation, which is that a big chunk of a certain group of voters, people the Tories desperately need to vote for them at the next election if they have any hope of warding off existential electoral disaster, simply want Brexit to work. They see that it isn’t working now, so Starmer saying he’ll go and try and get something better will probably appeal to a lot of this section of the electorate.
This is beyond the fact that the Tories essentially saying “Starmer is being so unrealistic! He thinks he can march over to Brussels and demand a bunch of stuff and get it handed to him on a silver platter?” is deeply, deeply ridiculous. This is the same bunch of people who have told us for years that “we hold all the cards” and that Brexit can work out to be something beautiful, so long as we all believe in it hard enough. Then Starmer says he believes in it hard enough to try and get a new deal, and the Brexiters turn into braying FBPE types all of a sudden, saying the EU are too big and powerful for the likes of little old Britain to overcome.
So, bullshit and the insanity of the current British politics aside (I realise I didn’t need to make a distinction between those two things), what are the chances of Starmer getting a better deal from the EU? Without crossing any of his red lines, meaning no single market, no customs union, no freedom of movement? Pretty much zero, at least in real terms.
For a start, the EU and its member states have had enough of the Brexit psychodrama. Their view on the whole thing is that Brexit made the EU come together, made it stronger; not only did no other country leave, but Brexit made it highly likely no other country will ever even think seriously about doing so again. The economic fallout was as minimal as it could be for the member states. Ireland is fine. There is no need to go back to the table unless the UK is serious about changing the stakes.
And clearly, Starmer is not serious about any of this. He wants to get whatever he can from the EU without being serious about it, and that will not be very much in the end. I suppose he could try and get some deal where we sign up to complete and permanent dynamic alignment with the EU in return for, I don’t know, something, anything. It will be eerily like what the Tories have been doing for the last few years: getting something fairly unimpressive from the EU and then crowing about as if they’d just got France to cede the entire Nord-Pas-de-Calais to England. The big difference being, when Labour pull this trick, watching all of the journos who bigged up the rubbish when it was a Tory government trying to pull the wool over everyone’s eyes suddenly complaining about how Starmer has got nothing out of negotiations with the EU. Even if what Starmer comes back with is objectively much better than any of the awfulness seen under the last 17 Tory prime ministers since we voted for Brexit, it won’t matter. The journos in question won’t even be embarrassed by their own obvious hypocrisy - who, of anyone whose opinion they care about, will call them out on it?
No, Starmer will get very little from the European Union. And hey, perhaps this is all part of a secret, long-term plan by Labour to get us to rejoin the EU - show how impossible it is to “Make Brexit Work”, how small the stuff you can get back from the EU is if you won’t agree to join the single market and accept freedom of movement. Perhaps. I don’t think so, though. I don’t believe it’s that sophisticated. I figure they think this is the next step to take in getting them elected, that’s it. And, despite what GB News will tell you, I think they are probably right about that.
It looks to me as if the Tories and their cheerleaders in the press are underestimating how powerful “Make Brexit Work” will be as a campaign slogan for Labour. That’s what people want, ironically enough because that’s what the Tories and their cheerleaders in the press have encouraged them to want over the last few years. Of course, it’s empty and won’t yield anything good for the country, but that’s because Brexit is empty and won’t yield anything good for the country. And there is no way that the Tories and their cheerleaders in the press can admit to that, so they will be helpless as they watch Starmer steal all their best lines out from under them, on his way to a thumping majority.
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"No, Starmer will get very little from the European Union."
Yes and no. If there is one thing about the EU I have understood, it is that it is a "perpetual negotiation machine" - and I don't mean that negatively. The EU doesn't even give up on hopeless cases like Lord Frost. It will find little improvements to the TCA that make life easier for the EU and the UK.
The problem is that there still are many people in the UK who think that there is a way to have "frictionless trade" as promised by Ms May while being outside the EU. The last seven years should have told the UK that even if possible, the EU won't offer it. There are more than 100.000 pages in the acquis communitaire which makes the Single Market possible. That will not be replicated for UK access to the SM and therefore the friction will remain. In that sense, Labour's slogan of "make Brexit work", is a lie. And Mr Starmer is a liar when saying that "there is no case for the UK rejoining the EU" or the Single Market.
IMO the UK politicians, including Mr Starmer, are still in the lying phase of Brexit. The EU will have little interest in making qualitative changes to the TCA until that stops. If that's another stage you in the UK need, by all means go for it. But I don't think that Mr Starmer writing an article in the RW press that the EU is "nicking our dinner money" will go unnoticed in the EU and improve Mr Starmer's standing.
I agree that the lack of seriousness in Labour's approach will be a limiting factor of what will be able to achieve.
As long as there is no honest evaluation of how dire the current situation is and how much effort will be required to rectify it, there won't be any major improvements.
However, I am also somewhat more optimistic that even the things that can be achieved will have significant positive impact and potentially allow the approach to become more serious.
There are a couple of low hanging fruits that are beyond the Tory grasp but within Labour's reach.
For example dynamic alignment in areas like food, plants and animals has always been on offer by the EU and is within Labour's red lines but outside those of the Tories.
This could mean a significant improvement for British farm and fishing industries, especially in the context of broken Brexit promises and disastrous portions of the deals with Australia and New Zealand.
On the EU side this would create certainty for their food industry which is currently in prolonged limbo while the UK is delaying its introduction of border checks again and again but officially still planning to do it at some point.
And it has the bonus of sending the message, that improvements can be gained by having a government not lead by dogmatic hard liners.
Which could strengthen the more moderate and pragmatic wing of the Conservatives and thus enable further shifting of red lines.