How Brexit fan Putin is pushing the UK and EU closer together

War in Europe was the original spur for the creation of what’s now the EU and Putin’s invasion of Ukraine is drawing the UK and Europe onto a shared path

When Keir Starmer sat down to dinner with EU counterparts in Brussels early last month, it was seen as the most significant moment in the UK’s relationship with our European neighbours since Brexit became a reality five years ago.

Here was a declared reset and a signal, it seemed, that London was finally prepared to re-engage in a serious, grown-up relationship with the EU. To that extent, it was arguably less important what was on the agenda as Starmer and his counterparts chatted over a menu of celeriac soup and sea bream than the mere fact of the meeting itself.

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It would have been inconceivable, given the bitter internal backlash it would undoubtedly have provoked, for any of his Conservative predecessors to have been seen to be similarly wined and dined in Brussels.

That did not mean the venture was risk-free for Starmer. There were the inevitable cries from some quarters of sellout and betrayal, as if merely sitting down to discuss issues of mutual concern with our nearest neighbours should be regarded as treasonous.

Russian President Vladimir Putin would like the EU to break up, but his war on Ukraine is pushing the UK back towards Brussels (Picture: Maxim Shemetov/pool)Russian President Vladimir Putin would like the EU to break up, but his war on Ukraine is pushing the UK back towards Brussels (Picture: Maxim Shemetov/pool)
Russian President Vladimir Putin would like the EU to break up, but his war on Ukraine is pushing the UK back towards Brussels (Picture: Maxim Shemetov/pool) | POOL/AFP via Getty Images

Co-operation is a necessity

But it is what has happened since that night, and the longer-term impact it may have on UK-EU relations, that is perhaps more interesting and significant. Because the weeks since have seen Starmer engage in a blizzard of diplomatic activity, most of it focused on talks with fellow European leaders, over the war in Ukraine.

Leaving aside the plausibility of some of what has been discussed – it is difficult, for example, to see a way in which UK and European troops could be deployed to Ukraine in a peacekeeping or “reassurance force” role without some fundamental US buy-in which currently looks unlikely – it is the way in which the defence and security situation has necessitated in-depth cooperation between London, Brussels and other European capitals that is noteworthy.

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Such intense joint working was certainly not foreseen at the point that Brexit took place, when the idea of a full-scale war in Europe was, perhaps naively, not on anyone’s radar. The reality of that conflict, and the added urgency recently injected into European security given the stance taken by the Trump White House, has meant a degree of UK-European interaction on a scale that wasn’t predicted, and which may need to continue for some time to come.

A welcome warming of relations with EU

A paper published in Brussels in the last few days is the latest step towards what is envisaged as a formal EU-UK defence pact, separate and distinct from Nato. And while cooperation is primarily in the security sphere, it is hard to avoid the conclusion that the deeper it goes and the longer it continues, it must inevitably draw the UK back closer to Europe and the EU in other areas too.

Any such warming of post-Brexit relations would likely be welcomed by a majority of the UK public, who, according to some of the most recent opinion polls, are increasingly of the view that Brexit has been little short of a disaster.

Polling carried out at the start of this year to mark the fifth anniversary of leaving the EU showed that just 30 per cent thought it had been right to opt for Brexit, compared to 55 per cent who thought it had been wrong for the UK to vote Leave. Factoring out the don’t knows, that equates to almost two-thirds of people rejecting Brexit.

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Further, the same polling showed, regardless of which way people voted, that nearly six times as many think leaving the EU has been a failure as opposed to a success, whilst opinion among younger people, including those too young to vote in 2016, is overwhelmingly negative towards the decision to leave the EU and its consequences.

Labour and Tories wedded to Brexit

That’s not to say that we can expect a wholesale reversal of Brexit anytime soon. Much as the raw polling numbers should, and in other circumstances would, give comfort to any UK Government seeking to make the case for rejoining the EU, the fact is that both Labour and the Conservatives are wedded to Brexit as an article of faith. As such, for Scotland it remains the case that the only realistic way back into Europe is with independence.

However, after almost a decade in which the widely propagated narrative is that only the hardest, purest Brexit will do and that any deviation from that must be seen as betrayal, it is just possible that the current wave of UK-European diplomacy – allied to what might be called pushing at open door territory in terms of public opinion – could usher in a new era where it is possible to talk sensibly about what deeper cooperation between the UK and EU might look like.

The UK rejoining the customs union, something that many business leaders would wholeheartedly welcome, must surely come back seriously into play at some point. Alongside that, there is increasing potential for serious, practical UK-EU cooperation on a whole range of fronts.

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Splitting Europe in Putin’s interest

History is littered with unexpected events, knock-on effects and unforeseen, unintended consequences – the so-called black swan moments which disrupt widely held assumptions. Vladimir Putin undoubtedly wanted Brexit to happen.

Splitting Europe has always been one of his strategic aims. How ironic then, if it is his actions in Ukraine which have the unintended consequence of ushering in an unexpected rapprochement between the UK and the continental mainland.

War in Europe was the original spur for the creation of what has become the European Union as we now know it. And it may be that war in Europe today is once again the driver for integration which this time draws the UK and Europe back towards a shared path.

Stuart Nicolson is a partner at Atland UK and a former spokesperson for the First Minister of Scotland

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