Brussels is threatening to walk away from Burnham’s EU ‘reset’ talks until after the next general election unless Britain makes even more concessions than Labour is already offering. Give an inch, and they’ll take a mile 1.6 kilometres…
Labour has reportedly offered to slash tuition fees for European students in British universities, along with lifting the cap on a youth mobility scheme to let in up to 100,000 under-30s visa-free. The EU wants all of that, thank you very much, and is still refusing to let British steel and car firms into its “made in Europe” scheme, which hands EU companies priority for public contracts and subsidies. Brussels wants an even “wider reset”…
Buried underneath the summit row is the SPS agreement, which would hand Brussels the rule book on British food and farming, give the European Court even more power, and asks British taxpayers to cough up for the privilege. It would also make a US agriculture deal practically impossible…
Former Treasury minister and adviser to Burnham in the Makerfield campaign Lord Jim O’Neill, who has turned down a role in his government, said Burnham’s first statement Commons was:
“The last thing investors wanted to hear… gilt yields have risen by a 0.25% in one day, which is a lot. We’ve not had that since Liz Truss days… If your country is under the focus of ‘can they come up with a sensible fiscal strategy’ on a day when the markets think ‘well no, you’re not showing any sign of it’ you’re going to have a tough day…if it stays like this your mortgage rate is going up.”