Can Starmer sell Britain on the Brexit reset summit deal?

How to do this was one of the topics discussed when the UK Trade & Business Commission independent think tank gathered an expert panel to discuss the summit today. Present were Miguel Berger, Germany’s ambassador to the UK, Philip Rycroft, former permanent secretary at the short-lived Department for Exiting the EU, and Evie Aspinall, director of the British Foreign Policy Group think tank. All sounded positive about how Britain and Brussels might get closer together; all expressed varying degrees of caution about how this might be received in a country that voted Leave less than nine years ago.

It seems clear that three things will emerge from the May 19 get-together. First is the much-discussed and largely uncontroversial defence and security pact that will let Britain share in massive investment to protect the continent and help Ukraine in the face of Donald Trump’s abdication of responsibility. 

Second is a communiqué laying out a package of things Britain and the European Union think they are close to agreement on – including easing border red tape, a youth mobility scheme and closer co-operation on energy trading. Both sides expect these to be tied up by the end of 2025, leaving 2026 free for a welcome renegotiation of Boris Johnson and Lord Frost’s botched Trade And Co-Operation Agreement (TCA).

But third is a cause of nerves – an agreement to continue with current fishing arrangements already seen by fishers as going back on pre-Brexit promises that leaving the EU would give European boats less access to UK waters. This, and the fact that aligning with EU standards to ease red tape means agreeing to regulations Britain had no part in shaping, will be the focus of the Brexiteer attacks.

“The sorts of changes that are proposed will have some political cost in the UK context,” said Rycroft. “We already have the fisher folk kicking up about the possibility of a rollover of the deal that was done in the TCA. They don’t like extending that for another two or three years.” Alignment, he added, “would mean the UK parliament passing an awful lot of legislation over which it has had very limited influence, and this will be tough. It will be seen as running away from Brexit, and there’s no easy path out of that.”

Aspinall noted that while there is broad polling support for closer relations, “there are specific issues – migration being probably the number one and fishing rights the second – where I think it has a potential to become quite a toxic debate… if I was in government, I’d be particularly nervous about [those] at this point in time.”

Berger believes that for the UK and EU to sell the reset deals, they must convince voters that they will “help reduce prices in the supermarket. This is the message we need to send to consumers”. 

On fisheries, he hopes that making it easier for British fishers to sell in the EU will ease some of their fears. “It’s about quotas and access for boats but it’s also important to underline that more than 70% of the fish which comes from British fishers is sold in the European market,” he said.

The task for Starmer, then, is selling Britain on the idea that the trade-offs make financial sense for individual households. That’s not as easy as it sounds. For one thing, Rycroft concedes, nothing that is going to be set in train on May 19 is going to come anywhere near to filling the 4% hole in GDP made by Brexit. In terms of a potential uplift, “I’ve seen a figure of £2bn with more exports on the food side,” he said. “So you’re talking significant numbers, but 4% of GDP is a lot more than that.”

Then there is the fact – unaddressed by the UK Trade & Business Commission panel – that when it comes to salesmanship, Starmer is closer to Gordon Brown than Tony Blair. The prime minister may be many things, but a great communicator is not one of them. While on the other side, said Rycroft, “there are plenty of politicians who will seize on any opportunity to make a fuss [about] what they see as a reneging on the Brexit process. So this will be politically hard fought, but it’s the right direction of travel.”

The ultimate tragedy, of course, would be if Starmer, having restricted the possibilities of deeper and more rewarding co-operation through his red lines, proves unable to sell Britain on even these modest proposals. It’s far from a given when the gains are not vast and Farage, as looks likely to be proved at next week’s local elections, is a formidable opponent.

The Brexit wars are about to start again; and once again, the pro-European side cannot afford to lose.