Keir Starmer is off to Brussels today to be the first Prime Minister since Brexit to cozy up to all 27 EU leaders as he looks to deepen ties with the bloc. Starmer’s pushing for a UK-EU security pact, though as usual, it’s UK gives, and the EU takes. This time, EU leaders are pushing for a Youth Mobility Scheme, which would effectively pave the way for a return to free movement. Happy five years of Brexit…
Starmer’s close ally and former Blair Cabinet minister, Lord Falconer, was on the Today programme this morning, already laying the groundwork for joining the Youth Mobility Scheme, effectively touting it as already in motion:
“They [EU] need to trust us…we can get closer…we need to be as close as we can without giving up the freedoms that were obtained by doing Brexit and Keir is doing a very good job in trying to get to that particular position. It means a negotiation with the European Union. So we want less friction in our trade, they want the rolling over of the Fisheries agreement and they want the Youth Mobility Scheme. There will have to be a negotiation…and that’s really the job [Starmer] is doing.”
This would be a double betrayal—not just of Brexit but of yet another Labour promise. The government has spent months insisting it wouldn’t join the scheme:
- July 2024: “We are not considering a youth mobility scheme,” said a government spokesperson.
- August 2024: Downing Street: “We are not considering this at all.”
- October 2024: Starmer personally ruled it out, declaring it wasn’t even up for discussion.
While Starmer bows to Brussels, he drifts further from a booming Washington. Labour’s road to rejoin is well underway…
With Starmer busily unravelling Brexit, shuttling back and forth to Brussels to meet with EU leaders and inviting Macron, Scholz and others to Chequers, Brexiteers are watching developments carefully. Their anxiety has not been helped by the Tory approach, published over the weekend…
Kemi has adopted ‘five tests’ as her Brexit position: As any veteran of Brexit negotiations will say, the only position that matters right now as far as the EU is concerned is whether or not Starmer’s deal would be accepted in the UK. Kemi’s tests certainly leave that open…
5 years ago we delivered the biggest democratic mandate in British history.
Now Keir Starmer, who campaigned for a second referendum, is trying to take us backwards.
So we’re setting him 5 tests he must meet in any future deal with the EU 👇 pic.twitter.com/XrNUCRtBeU
— Conservatives (@Conservatives) February 2, 2025
The Tories cannot block any renegotiation in parliamentary terms after the Sunak wipeout. But along with the media heft of Reform, they are in a position to influence Starmer’s diplomatic negotiation by saying they would reject his deal outright. Except, they’ve done the opposite…
A slew of Brexit veterans got in touch with Guido to express concerns about particular ‘tests’ – ‘no backsliding on free movement’ does not explicitly rule out the EU mobility scheme. ‘No compromise on the primacy of NATO’ leaves plenty of room for other EU defence initiatives. “The EU will see this as a signal it can just do what it likes and it will not be opposed in Britain,” said one leading Brexiteer. Although ERG numbers are now heavily depleted in Parliament, will they wake up?
Trump was asked overnight about potential tariffs for Europe:
“The UK is way out of line and we’ll see. But European Union is really out of line. The UK is out of line but I’m sure that one, I think that one can be worked out. But the European Union, it’s an atrocity what they’ve done.”
A Brexit dividend. The President said the EU is “definitely” getting tariffed and that “they take almost nothing and we take everything from them.” He offered the UK a way out, saying Starmer has “been very nice.”
“We’ve had a couple of meetings. We’ve had numerous phone calls. We’re getting along very well.”
Starmer for his part said yesterday that “it is early days. What I want to see is strong trading relations.” The vast majority of dispatches from across the pond have made clear that the new administration is keen to work extremely closely with the UK but their efforts are so far unreciprocated. Starmer is now en route to Brussels to reopen Brexit negotiations…
“He is Mr Rules” were the immortal words of a Labour briefing line issued in 2022 when Keir Starmer was last accused of breaking lockdown rules. How hollow those words seem today. During the ‘Beergate’ scandal, Starmer began by completely denying he had done anything wrong. The matter was first raised in detail on this website – and eventually, the BBC, The Times and even The Guardian caught up. What’s good for the goose is good for the gander…
The Durham incident ultimately was investigated by the police. It emerged during this period that Labour had spun a web of (at best) half-truths, inconsistencies and omissions. Starmer made a moral stand: he declared he would resign as Labour leader if he had broken Covid rules. Luckily for him, Durham Police dropped the investigation, letting him off the hook, and never pronounced a verdict on whether his beer and curry was actually a rule breach. There was speculation that Durham Constabulary took a much more liberal approach than the Met to these matters, and that he would have been fined had Beergate taken place in London. Starmer’s meeting with his voice coach took place in the Met’s jurisdiction…
Starmer finds himself in difficulty after The Sunday Times – inadvertently- revealed that he had met his voice coach in person at Labour HQ on Christmas Eve 2020. This was during strict Tier 4 restrictions in London (actual law, not guidance) – a much more strict set of restrictions than those in force during Beergate. Families had just been told they could essentially not see any relatives over Christmas. The atmosphere in Christmas 2020 was pre ‘partygate’ – it was one of the worst periods of restrictions of liberty in the capital. The only feasible defence for Starmer in the regulations is to claim that it was reasonably necessary for his voice coach to be present physically at a work meeting. Absolutely no one will believe that, especially given Mssrs Pogrund and Maguire recount previous sessions being delivered via phone call. The partygate scandal itself broke a year after gatherings had been mentioned as a throwaway lines in an old Times piece – that went on to sink Tory Prime Ministers…
Labour’s line this morning is: “The rules were followed.” Sound familiar?
Tricky questions for Starmer to answer…
Speaking at his speech on how to achieve “progressive capitalism” Wes Streeting fired a dig and Andy Burnham:
“Bond markets are not bond villains and fiscal rules matter.”
