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:
While Starmer bows to Brussels, he drifts further from a booming Washington. Labour’s road to rejoin is well underway…
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.”