Why Keir Starmer's EU deal may have already doomed Labour to election defeat
By moving too close to the European Union, Keir Starmer will likely have increased support for Reform UK in Labour heartlands
According to Keir Starmer, his negotiation with the EU was supposed to reset our relationship. Announced firstly by communique as a vague ‘heads of agreement’ deal with further details to be worked out – it is not a reset, not even a retreat, it is a capitulation, an unconditional surrender that changes the relationship beyond recognition.
No doubt, there will be further pain when the detail is worked out. Why should there not be? Time and time again, the EU has shown it has the guile to get what it wants, then come back for more at the 11th hour.
There was anger among many who care about our fishing communities and marine environmentalists when it was learned the current UK-EU fishing agreement would not end in 2026 but be extended four years until 2030. But that was not enough for the EU, the Commission got greedy and pushed for 12 more years until 2038. Needless to say when the EU asked if he would jump, Starmer obliged by asking how high.
It means a dozen more years of EU boats overfishing, not even bothering to weigh their catches, and dumping old nets at sea (very harmful to wildlife). The plundering of our fish stocks by foreign boats landed and processed outside the UK will carry on. Meanwhile we need to import fish to meet domestic demand. No wonder the Scottish Fisherman’s Federation is livid, calling the extension of the already poor arrangement a “horror show”.
The rest of the announcement was no better, conceding British interests for hardly anything worthwhile in return. No wonder it has been a behind-closed-doors, secretive negotiation – it had to be, because it was always going to be a shameful betrayal of Labour’s working-class supporters who voted to leave the EU. Starmer's main aim has been not to agree a good deal but only to get closer to the EU technocracy.
The terms of the agreement mean the UK will in effect rejoin the single market for food and agriculture – breaking Starmer’s manifesto pledge. Once again EU laws and courts will prevail and the British parliament gets no say in either process. EU inspectors will once more police British farms and borders.
Why tie our entire food sector, only some of which is exported, to acknowledged excessive EU regulatory costs or often lower standards – and pay to do so!
The UK will also rejoin the EU’s single market on energy trading, carbon pricing and border controls. This is also unhelpful because its rules are designed to protect EU businesses and, unsurprisingly, make no allowance for ours.
By tying the UK to dynamic alignment of EU rules, meaning that as it changes its laws so the UK automatically adopts them, we sign up in lockstep our heavy industry, farmers, food processors, manufacturers and leading technologies to the EU’s direction and control. The route map that determines the success or failure of our economic future is no longer in our own hands but with those whose loyalties and interests lay elsewhere.
We’ve also conceded the UK will provide an EU youth mobility scheme, but with no detail on any limit to numbers, NHS contributions and the price of student fees. With far higher EU youth unemployment in countries like Spain, the attraction of competing for jobs and student places while improving English as a second language will be irresistible for tens of thousands. Immigration will go up when, for many communities, it’s the biggest problem they face.
For all this, we will have to pay in new money to Brussels – again not knowing how much – when we have just stopped ten million pensioners receiving their winter heating allowance and are cutting disability benefits. Why should we be sending any money when the EU is the beneficiary?
There’s a defence agreement we don't need which will eventually result in us taking directions about where we shall deploy our forces and what kit we will procure (restricting us to EU suppliers rather than US technology).
The claim British passport holders will be able to use EU border e-gates is a false flag – it’s not an EU competence but decided nationally and often airport by airport. Already Brits can use e-gates in Portugal (at least five airports); Spain (more than eight); France (more than five) and even Brussels airport itself.
The reason for such an abysmal “reset” is simple; the EU continues to push at the open door that is Starmer’s ideological belief in government through international conventions drawn up by multilateral agencies appointed by detached political institutions, all implemented by technocratic bureaucrats and overseen by foreign courts with political agendas.
The result is the EU becomes responsible for more and more of what affects people’s lives, yet accountable to fewer and fewer by removal of democratic lines of authority. As the detail emerges and the promised but illusory economic benefits do not transpire so the cheerleaders of Starmer’s reset will fall quiet – or simply lie through their back teeth.
The opportunity costs to the UK of being held back from developing some of our leading food technologies, such as protecting crops against parasites and disease or advancing in AI, will result in lost jobs, lower tax revenues and less economic activity.
Meanwhile we will again be open to EU livestock feeds containing animal parts and lower standards of welfare – including accepting live animals travelling for slaughter (which the UK banned).
Starmer told the British public that Brexit was not threatened, it was just a reset of relationships. His deal is much, much more – that may impress some, but in Labour heartlands it will likely strengthen Reform UK – which has promised to repeal the deal. That’s why this week could be the moment a Labour defeat in the next general election was sealed. Pity we have to wait four years to repair the damage.
Brian Monteith is a former member of the Scottish and European parliaments and editor of ThinkScotland.org
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