Why Andy Burnham can’t come away from EU summit with nothing – Alistair Carmichael
Andy Burnham needs a big win from the Brussels summit next week, like a return to frictionless trade between the UK and EU
Keir Starmer did not have many good days during his two years as Prime Minister. He was never a politician who went large on the ‘vision thing’. One of the few days that he did enjoy was around the EU reset. He managed to warm up the relationship with our European neighbours in a quite remarkable way.
The reception for British politicians heading out to Brussels improved almost overnight. Gone was the attitude of ‘you voted to leave – get on with it’. In its place, there was a willingness to engage and rebuild productive working relationships.
The outcome of the Starmer reset was to be a “Sanitary and Phytosanitary (SPS) Agreement”, aimed at cutting red tape for agri-food products. Like much of what Starmer did, the language was managerial and obscured rather then highlighted the politics of it.
Burnham’s big talk, small walk
At the end of next week, we shall find out what that SPS agreement actually looks like. The bad news for Starmer’s biographers is that the product of what he achieved now looks like a footnote as his successor tells a new story about our relationship with the European Union.
Gone is the talk of ‘dynamic regulatory alignment’; in comes the visionary rhetoric of rejoining the single market, the customs union and even full membership of the EU.
In many ways, the relationship with Europe is the Burnham government in microcosm. We hear a lot of big talk. We are told that the government is focussed on helping households buckling under the pressure of the cost of living. What we get, by contrast, is £50 off a bill for this, that or the other.
EU summit must produce the goods
It’s not difficult to understand why. Andy Burnham and his Chancellor dare not scare the markets by going full throttle on their redistributive instincts. They do not have the cash to pay for it.
They also struggle to understand how to free up business to make the necessary investment to boost the economy, so growth continues to be sluggish and business confidence is elusive.
Resetting our relationship and moving us closer to our European neighbours may have a political price attached to it, but it doesn’t have a financial price tag. Talk is cheap.
At the end of next week’s EU summit, Burnham will need to have something to show as a tangible benefit. A return to frictionless trade between the UK and the EU would be something about which to boast, even if it does bring with it some technical challenges.
Angry farmers?
Burnham will ignore these technical challenges at his peril. The last thing he needs is a chorus of angry farmers and growers taking to the stage as he leaves it, complaining that he has traded away the plant protection products that they need.
Instead, the SPS agreement should be a gateway to the economic growth that he claims to want. Burnham has an appetite for ‘big vision’ politics. The problem that he faces is that he has inherited from Starmer a manifesto that been almost entirely bled of it.
Can he maintain the big vision rhetoric while delivering incremental change without a new mandate of his own? The answer to that may start to become a little clearer after next Friday.
Alistair Carmichael is Liberal Democrat MP for Orkney and Shetland
Comments
Want to join the conversation? Please or to comment on this article.