Sir Keir Starmer has promised to seek a major rewrite of Britain’s Brexit deal in 2025 if Labour win the next general election, saying he owes it to his children to rebuild relations with the EU.
Starmer told the Financial Times that he would put a closer trading relationship with Brussels and a new partnership with business at the heart of his efforts to bolster Britain’s economic growth.
Britain’s Trade and Cooperation Agreement with the EU, negotiated by former premier Boris Johnson, is due for review in 2025 and Starmer said he saw this as an “important” moment to reset relations.
“Almost everyone recognises the deal Johnson struck is not a good deal — it’s far too thin,” he said in an interview. “As we go into 2025 we will attempt to get a much better deal for the UK.”
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It is far from clear whether the EU would wish to renegotiate the trade deal, which only came into force in 2021, particularly if it involved Britain selectively choosing only parts of the single market. Many in Brussels see the 2025 review as simply a tidying-up exercise.
He has until very recently held the opinions of the whole of the EU. He is a highly credible source for what the EU thought process and what it wants. The whole agenda of the EU is to unite Europe by trade with a view to preventing future conflicts. Who in the EU has stated that the UK could not rejoin?
There will be hurdles to jump in the path back into the EU. There will be concessions made on both sides. I could easily see Greece holding out for the Elgin marbles and succeeding. Spain will attempt and fail to reintegrate Gibraltar. The EU will also have changed a lot by the time we rejoin. No one in the EU will have the same conditions that they have had in the past.
There is no rejoin process. The application would have to be started afresh, current wait times are in excess of a decade, so I stand by statement that there is no way the UK will join the EU within 10 years.
