Breaking the silence on Brexit

Keir Starmer is right to pursue a “reset” with the EU. But he risks pleasing no one.

Photo by Imageplotter/Alamy Live News

Five years after the UK left the European Union, Britain is confronting an inconvenient truth: Brexit is not done. In truth, it could never be done. Rather than settling the European question, the referendum only sharpened it. Before the vote, much of the public was indifferent to the EU. Afterwards, the nation was divided into two tribes: Remainers and Leavers.

Yet in the initial aftermath of Brexit, a conspiracy of silence pervaded British politics. The Conservatives feared scrutiny of its damaging consequences; Labour feared being seen to undermine the referendum result. Even the Europhile Liberal Democrats avoided the subject for fear of deterring target voters.

But since Labour’s election victory, this political omertà has begun to fracture. In her recent speech on the economy, Rachel Reeves pointedly referred to “the last government’s failed Brexit deal”. Liberal Democrat leader Ed Davey has urged ministers to seek a new customs union with the EU and “Trump-proof” the UK.

Even Leavers are dissatisfied with the status quo. The Conservative leader Kemi Badenoch has conceded that her party lacked “a plan for growth outside the EU”. Reform leader Nigel Farage has declared that the UK’s existing trade deal is “not a very good one”.

In this respect, they are aligned with the public. Just 30 per cent of voters now believe the UK was right to leave the EU, according to a new YouGov poll, while only 11 per cent believe Brexit has been a success.

Yet failure – or at least disappointment – was always inevitable. There was no cost-free way for the UK to sever relations with its largest trading partner. Deals with more distant countries, such as Australia and New Zealand, were never going to compensate for the hit to growth.

Deprived of the scapegoat of Brussels, Brexit could have been the moment for the UK to grapple with its fundamental weaknesses: dismal productivity, regional inequality, dilapidated infrastructure. But the Conservative governments that followed lacked either the will or the ability to do so.

The problem to which Brexit was the solution is ever less clear to voters. Britain has formally regained sovereignty from the EU, but to what end? Immigration – which many Leavers hoped would fall – has reached a record high (peaking at 1.3 million in the year to June 2023).

In this context, Labour is right to pursue a “reset” with Europe. On 3 February, at the Palais d’Egmont in Brussels – the venue where Ted Heath took the UK into the Common Market – Keir Starmer became the first prime minister to attend an EU summit since Brexit.

Set against public opinion, the government’s objectives are modest. While 55 per cent of voters now favour rejoining the EU, Mr Starmer is seeking a new defence and security pact and deals on food and agricultural goods, energy, touring artists and professional qualifications. All of this is valuable – not least as ministers seek to revive a stagnant economy – but a complex negotiation will now ensue. The EU has demanded greater access to British fishing stocks and a youth mobility scheme for the under-30s.

Ministers have dismissed the latter as a dangerously radical idea. “That’s not the right starting point for us at all because what we need to do is to bring net migration down,” the Home Secretary, Yvette Cooper, has said.

But this is short-sighted. Under the proposal, 18- to 30-year-olds would be granted the right to live, work and study in the UK/EU for up to four years. This would help overcome the dismal isolation that Brexit has imposed on young people (while still falling short of full free movement). Unsurprisingly, the policy is backed by 68 per cent of voters, including 53 per cent of Leavers, many of whom cherished such rights in the past.

The risk for Labour is that its European reset pleases no one. Hard Brexiteers will denounce any rapprochement with the EU as a betrayal; Remainers will deride the refusal to contemplate single market and customs union membership.

To justify the diplomatic hype, Mr Starmer will need to offer concrete benefits to voters. A youth mobility scheme would be a good place to start. Its rejection, by contrast, would send a grim message to Europe: that the UK is alive to the problems with Brexit but remains unwilling to contemplate the solutions.

[See also: Defenceless Britain]