Keir Starmer’s EU visit does nothing but confirm timidity of UK

The nonsense system that First Past The Post is delivered a huge parliamentary majority, but on the lowest turnout since universal suffrage and without any particular objective as to what they want to do with it.

I remember 1997, indeed voted enthusiastically for the Labour candidate in Islington where I was living.

There was an element of “let’s get the Tories out”, certainly, but there was also a positive sense of a plan, a project.

This government seems to have precisely the opposite, even the middle management word soup of “missions” and “deliverables” seems to be all about managing the status quo a bit better.

And sadly this drift continued to the Prime Minister’s trip to Brussels last week.

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If you’re negotiating with the EU, you really, really, need to know what you want, and now we do know what the PM wants – a quiet life.

His trip to meet EU Commission President Ursula von der Leyen, European Council President Charles Michel and President of the European Parliament Roberta Metsola along with various other MEPs was all very good, it is the sort of trip a PM should be making.

But there was (unsurprisingly) little detail to emerge from any of the chats – this was very much an introductory series of courtesy calls.

That’s fine as far as it goes but when the stickiness of UK relations with the EU is causing so much harm to so many, I’d have liked to see a bit more urgency and focus on solutions.

But a few things did emerge.

There will be an annual UK-EU Summit and constant talks on whatever files might need negotiating.

Keir Starmer during a visit to the European Commission Talks will start in earnest next year when the EU Commission is back up and running.

Youth mobility will be on the table – even if there is unease on the UK side that they don’t want anything that looks or sounds like a return to freedom of movement.

I would take precisely the opposite view – getting back into freedom of movement will solve at a stroke many of the issues we’re facing in terms of labour shortages, and problems folk like touring musicians have in touring across the EU.

However, the fact it will be part of the talks is progress, after a fashion.

The UK priorities are, to my mind, pretty uncontentious and shouldn’t cause too many difficulties – a veterinary agreement to ease post-Brexit trade frictions; a security agreement, and the mutual recognition of professional qualifications.

As I’ve written before, a UK-Germany security agreement is already well in hand, and with the parallel Lancaster House UK-France framework, the bones of an EU Agreement are already largely in place, and co-operation on Ukraine necessitates an urgency to formalise the ongoing co-operations.

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Mutual recognition of professional qualifications is meat and drink to the EU, and again entirely in everyone’s interests.

But does an agreement on all these things represent a Great Reset? No, I would not say it does.

There were also pointed reminders from the EU side that there’s little appetite in Brussels or elsewhere for discussion of new stuff until the existing stuff is actually properly implemented.

Said von der Leyen: “We have a set of solid agreements in place. We should explore the scope for more co-operation while we focus on the full and faithful implementation of the Withdrawal Agreement, the Windsor Framework, and the Trade and Cooperation Agreement (TCA).”

There’s various parts of particularly the TCA that have still to be fully implemented as the UK Government has postponed implementation for fear of border chaos, they can only kick that can down the road for so long.

Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer meeting with European Parliament president Roberta Metsola (Image: Benjamin Cremel/PA Wire) There will be real pain when the new border checks are implemented fully but the EU is not going to budge – you’ll implement what you’ve promised before we’ll talk about anything else.

One issue also raised its head this week which we’ll come back to soon enough – fishing.

The fishing arrangements struck as part of the Trade and Co-operation Agreement are due for renegotiation next year and the lists are already being drawn up.

I confidently predict they’ll be used as leverage on some of the other talks under way.

One of the difficulties Switzerland has not being part of the EEA and single market is that each of its issues requires an endless series of bilateral agreements and constant negotiation.

The UK has now accepted the same reality.

The trouble is they’re talks without an end, and without a destination.

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The UK will not be negotiating with a view to rejoining the single market, or customs union, but instead trying to reverse engineer solutions to the problems caused by not being in either framework.

Solutions are there to be found, but the bandwidth it will take up will be exhausting on the UK side.

Better now to use that big Commons majority and be brave, set an objective, work out what the North Star is and plot a path towards it.

The fact they have not done this is the most telling revelation of the week.

I want to see Scotland back in the EU, as an independent state in our own right or as part of a re-engaged UK.

The former of the scenarios became a bit more realistic this week as we saw just how timid the UK’s ambitions for us are.