Starmer's biggest problem on re-integration into Europe is that he pledged over and over again that he would not do most of it, but would make Brexit work, as if to neutralise the issue in a General Election. One of the problems he had in being so far ahead in opinion polls is that the softer 5% or so of his vote, couldn't be bothered to turn out on a wet day and he received an extraordinarily low 34% to produce a landslide. Of course Starmer could not see into the future, but a harder edge commitment on European integration that nonetheless kept us out of the EU would have maintained the landslide and given him some meat and potatoes to work with. Starmer has broken a few pledges in the past and got away with it. The situation on public finances and the need to turn around the economy and spending such as on NHS, trump anything he said on the EU. If he doesn't turn things around significantly, he could be out or at least into a minority in 4-8 years. This thought ought to give him backbone in standing up to the slowly expiring Daily Fail and others who will turn on him anyway, come what may. Expand full comment |
I still think you are skimming over the biggest problem: it is fairly easy to make a list of things the UK wants from ‘Europe’ but the question then arises, what do Brits give in return? As long as the answer is essentially “nothing”, the EU is quite justified in fending off Starmer’s various attempts at cherry picking. So, how about removing the obligation for Europeans to travel with passports? Why are ID cards not enough? Also how about the various ‘youth mobility’ proposals? Expand full comment |
These were exactly my thoughts when reading NT's article. Even pro-EU politicians in the UK (or at least in England) seem to think that the EU will give the UK some kind of special deal because... It's about time that the English political class grew up, and told the country that Brexit was a totally sh*t idea, but now, to recoup at least some of what was lost, the country is going to have to eat a large portion of humble pie. Of course they won't, because the English political reflex is still "we is speshul". I say England, because in Scotland, where I live and work, although I was born South of the border, the attitude is utterly different. Scotland knows that it's a small country, albeit one with a lot of cultural sway, and wants back in to the EU because that is where it belongs, as one amongst equals. Expand full comment |
I think "essentially nothing" is way too gloomy. There is certainly value in having the UK as a part of the Single Market, even as part of the EU. However, at the moment the risks involved with these levels of integration currently outstrips any potential benefits. As excruciating as the wait might be for proponents of European cooperation, it is wise that Labour does not consider such levels of rapprochement achievable for their first parliamentary term. As you said, there are lower hanging fruits available which would both help with building support for more within the British mind set and rebuild trust on reliability on the EU side. Expand full comment |
I have lost my freedom of movement, so why not offer that back and give us our rights. Without it, migration numbers went up from 200,000 to 700,000 anyway, so losing that right has not had the effect of cutting migration levels, not that I care about that collection of issues misleadingly bound together into a single number. Expand full comment |
Kit’s Substack Aug 15 Brexit = More Immigration..........a simple slogan but also a fact. This is slowly dawning on the public that when we were in the SM we had a lot of fluid migration around the continent for work. Out of the SM we have to bring whole families from the sub continent and Nigeria coming on a more permanent basis, let's get back in the SM and reduce immigration, this is what the politicians from all sides who are pro SM and CU should be saying. Expand full comment |
After the referendum, at least one Cabinet Minister was quoted (anonymously, of course) as saying that non-European immigration would have to increase. For some Brexiteers, this was a feature not a bug. As usual, the press (including the supposedly anti-Brexit) refuses to scratch the scab. Expand full comment |
This smacks of the English negotiating with themselves again. Do you mean Customs Union or Single Market? A CU is not much good to you since the vast bulk of your trade is in services. But the most important point is on what the UK needs to do first: You need to fully abide by agreements you have already signed. Nothing new will be offered until you show yourselves to be trustworthy. Expand full comment |
The article specifically makes the distinction of CU and SM and suggests to use the former as a kind of political stepping stone towards approaching the latter further down the line. However, I agree that it is unclear what a CU would potentially bring to the table. The TCA already makes most of the goods tariff free. I guess it could move or remove the threshold of how much of a product has to be from British production for it to qualify for tariff free import into the EU. Which businesses other than car manufacturing would benefit enough from that compensate for the political backlash of invalidating all the new trade deals (as bad as they are)? Expand full comment |
If you want to join our customs union you have to accept Freedom of Movement and the European Court of Justice. Any claim to have more because you are English makes you similar to the various BoJo or Frost. Expand full comment |
A third country can't join the EU's own customs union but needs to negotiate a separate (and often more limited) form. One example of such a bespoke customs union is Turkey. The four freedoms of movement are the corner stones of the single market and mostly orthogonal to any customs union. Getting those advantages back would of course be much more valuable but also much more complicated to achieve, both on the negotiation level as well as getting buy-in from the British electorate. Hence the article's suggestion to keep this for a later stage of the rapprochement efforts Expand full comment |
I object to your reference to 'science fiction.' More appropriate would be 'fantasy/phantasy.' Bendy bananas (BoJo) and Polish plumbers belong in the land of Dunsany, Lovecraft and Howard. Re-applying seed import or livestock rules/inspections would be a good thing. Unicorns could thus reenter and the hydra would be barred. Expand full comment |
