Closer food and farming ties with the EU on agenda

Closer food and farming ties with the EU could help bring down the cost of living, Andy Burnham has insisted, adding that a coming summit with the bloc “doesn’t need to be the end of our ambition”.

PA

The Prime Minister is due to sign a series of deals with the EU on November 20 in Brussels. They will be focused on bringing down post-Brexit trade barriers on food and farming, as well as working more closely on emissions trading, and making it easier for young people from the UK to work, live and study in Europe and vice versa. But he has suggested he wants to go further in deepening ties with Europe in the aftermath of the summit.

Mr Burnham made a case for forging closer ties with the UK’s continental neighbours based on bringing down household costs.

“It pays to have a good relationship with your neighbours, and the practical deals we are agreeing with Europe will pay off for families across the UK

“Cutting red tape on food coming in and out of the country will ease pressure on prices at the supermarket, while making life easier for farmers and food producers.

“This summit will show what we can achieve when we work together, but it doesn’t need to be the end of our ambition.

“Working more closely with Europe could drive growth, make our country safer and give us more tools to tackle illegal migration. That’s a conversation worth having.”

Prime Minister Andy Burnham (Kirsty Wigglesworth/PA)

Government sources suggested that restoring access to the EU’s migration database would be helpful to tackling illegal channel crossings and other migration crime in future. The Prime Minister, who has previously expressed a wish to see the UK rejoin the EU in his lifetime, has been careful to say he would leave such a decision in the hands of the public. Mr Burnham has said a range of options will be put before voters, and ruled out any major changes before an election.

In a sign that a food and agriculture deal is almost finalised, a draft text has been circulated among the 27 EU members, it is reported, along with similar documents on the emissions trading and youth mobility plans.

However, the Prime Minister faces some difficulties in forging significantly closer ties with the EU.

Michel Barnier, Brussels’ former chief Brexit negotiator, warned that Britain will not be able to pick and choose which elements of the European Union’s single market arrangements it wants if it decides to move closer to the bloc.

He said EU member states would insist the UK adopt measures such as the free movement of people if the country wants closer trade alignment in future. Mr Barnier, who was the EU’s chief Brexit negotiator between 2016 and 2021 – and briefly the French prime minister in 2024 – made the warning ahead of the summit.

Mr Barnier said further access to the EU would require Britain to accept its rules, warning there was not a “single market a la carte” from which the UK could pick and choose what elements it will adopt.

The “door is open” for the UK to re-join, he said, while adding that single market membership would require compliance with EU rules on the circulation of goods, services, capital and people, the so-called “four freedoms” of EU membership.

“There will be no possibility to have one freedom and not the other. The four freedoms are clearly the four conditions to be inside a single market,” Mr Barnier said.

In a further sign that Britain’s path back into Europe would present challenges, the Irish former premier who helped negotiate Brexit, Leo Varadkar, warned that Britain would be unlikely to get a £5bn annual rebate from the EU again if it rejoined.

Mr Varadkar, who helped secure the 2019 Brexit agreement with Boris Johnson, suggested the discount Margaret Thatcher had negotiated on paying into the EU’s central budget would not be on offer to the UK in future.

He said: “The rebate was at a particular point in time. Back in the 1980s, it was Thatcher who negotiated that. The formula for how you contribute to the European budget is straightforward.

“It’s a mathematical formula. It’s based on your GDP and then there are some direct elements as well. I think it would be very difficult to make the case for that.”

Scottish Labour leader Michael Marra this week called for the UK to rejoin the European Union – insisting this should be a “long-term objective” for the whole country.

The Labour MSP – who said he wanted “solidarity, not separation” – accepted that “rejoining the EU won’t be easy”.

Mr Marra acknowledged there would be “serious questions” over issues such as currency and borders before the UK could go back into the EU.

Speaking in Edinburgh on Tuesday, he insisted that “difficult is not the same as impossible”.

He accepted his call for the UK to go back into Europe goes further than Mr Burnham’s position.

Mr Marra was clear that “it is in Scotland’s interests, and in the interests of the whole United Kingdom, for the UK to rejoin the European Union”.

Addressing party supporters, the Scottish Labour leader set out how going back into Europe would boost the economy.

He said that “breaking down barriers” with European nations would “help Scottish businesses grow, attract investment and create better-paid jobs”.

It could also “help bring down prices and generate more money for our public services”, he added.

Mr Marra accepted that rejoining the EU “won’t solve every problem we have”, adding: “If we’re serious about growth, we cannot keep ignoring the opportunity on our doorstep.”