Why Keir Starmer is getting ready to sell out Britain to the EU
Keir Starmer’s Labour government can be defined by the word “reset”. After a calamitous start where he betrayed many who voted for him, he had to reset his government’s mission after only five months in power.
Not to be outdone, the Chancellor Rachel Reeves had to “reset” her approach to economic growth last week after the tsunami of bad news that followed her October Budget.
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Hide AdNow Starmer has been to Brussels to “reset” the UK’s relationship with the European Union, inching ever closer to entangling our economy and defence of our country at the mercy of laws we did not choose and politicians who are not accountable to us.
Last week was the fifth anniversary of the UK’s departure from the EU and, as could be expected, it generated inflated claims and counter-claims. The simple fact is Brexit has been neither the unmitigated disaster its critics said it would be, nor the been the unrivalled success that its adherents (including myself) had claimed it could be.


Brexit has been sub-optimal. When Michael Gove knifed Boris Johnson’s bid for Tory leadership in 2016, the die was cast. We shall never know what Johnson might have made of the opportunity to deliver Brexit, but there can be no doubting his boundless enthusiasm would have meant a bolder and more positive approach. Having helped win the referendum he would have been under no illusions he had a responsibility to deliver an optimal outcome.
Theresa May was a disaster; conceding the sequencing of issues to the EU ensured its negotiator Michel Barnier had the upper hand. Losing her majority in parliament, she then conceded demand after demand to Brussels – but could not deliver due to opposition parties being greedy for more. Her defenestration resulted in Johnson taking over but delivering a Brexit that was governed by May’s hobbled legacy. Northern Ireland was left behind, technically outside but in many respects commercially and legally inside.
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Hide AdInstead of dismantling the EU laws so we could exploit our strengths and opportunities, the Tories – still divided over the EU in Westminster – pulled back. The many Brexit benefits could have been more tangible but Rishi Sunak lost his nerve.
With Starmer now in Downing Street – in part because the Conservatives botched their limited vision of Brexit – we have a Prime Minister who rides two horses until he calculates he need only ride one. He tells the significant number of past and present Labour voters who support putting British national interests first that Brexit is here to stay – while telling those preferring unelected bureaucrats and unaccountable politicians of other countries that we will move closer to sharing their way of doing things.
If Starmer is elected for a second term, he can safely retire his Brexit horse while he rides on to take the UK into the EU’s single straitjacket and customs fortress.
Two people stand in Starmer’s way, Nigel Farage leading Reform UK to an election victory – and President Donald Trump making the highly regulated EU look like an old lag that needs pulled from the economic race.
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Hide AdStarmer’s meetings with the EU, like today’s at Eggermont, aim to show movement towards closer operations without upsetting the horses in the red wall seats.
The main prize for the EU is to pull in the UK’s military capability and defence industries so it might raise its projection as a global power. In typical fashion, it has sequenced any discussions about resetting relationships as being dependent on a deal – this time on access to the UK’s jobs market and educational institutions, and has lined-up re-establishing EU authority over our fishing grounds as its second demand.
So desperate has Starmer been to pull-off his reset that he gives the impression of a man willing to concede any EU demand so he might claim he has delivered his Holy Grail, no matter what poison cocktail the chalice may contain.
On security, the UK already has significant heft within Nato, second only to the United States – as well as playing a leading role in the Joint Expeditionary Force that comprises the Nordic countries, Baltic states and Netherlands for operations in Northern Europe. The EU’s ambitions are bigger than its capabilities – which is why the UK is important. Meanwhile the European Commission has changed unilaterally its legal trigger setting for joint defence to include space assets such as satellites – making an EU-led war easier.
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Hide AdOn Youth Freedom of Movement, there are 49 million EU citizens aged between 19 and 29 compared to 8.5 million British youths of the same age – and in the majority of EU countries, youth unemployment is significantly higher than the UK’s.
Granting a right of access to the UK jobs market and student places for the youth of 27 EU states in return for reciprocal access to only one EU country is one-sided. Limiting tuition fees to the “home” student rate and providing free access to the NHS would add to the real magnet of learning English. And will there still be checks on criminal records that saw 12,000 EU citizens denied entry to Britain because they had served more than a year in jail?
Starmer forgets the EU that the UK voted to leave in 2016 no longer exists, being more regulated, more costly and with stagnating economic growth – even before Trump’s promised tariffs have had any effect. It cannot significantly boost the UK’s economic GDP, but it can slow it further.
Even former president of the European Central Bank, Mario Draghi, reported last year that EU failures to improve productivity meant real disposable income grew almost twice as much in the US as in the EU since 2000.
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Hide AdIn the round, the best future for the UK is getting closer to Trump than to Ursula von der Leyen, and no amount of resetting towards the EU will change that.
Brian Monteith is a former member of the Scottish and European parliaments and communications director of Global Britain.
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