Chancellor Rachel Reeves is up for a fight for a closer relationship with the EU (Image: Getty)
Sir Keir Starmer is expected to make a major speech setting out his ambitions to push the UK closer to the European Union as he fights to stay on as Prime Minister. Labour needs to stop pro-EU supporters abandoning the party for the Greens and the Liberal Democrats.
Chancellor Rachel Reeves has already set out the scale of her ambitions to “align” Britain with EU regulations. Her plans horrify Brexiteers, who fear the UK will end up having to abide by EU rules it had no role in making. In her Mais lecture earlier this year, she declared that “Brexit did deep damage” and declared: “Our fate as a country is inescapably bound with that of Europe.”
Here are the key points from her blueprint for the EU link-up:
1. She thinks Brexit is bad for Britain
Michael Gove and Boris Johnson fighting for a Leave vote (Image: PA)
She declared: “Recent independent studies indicate its GDP impacts could be as much as 8%. It has meant higher costs for businesses, and therefore for higher costs in our shops. It’s meant shrinking markets for UK exporters, and our strategic industries exposed, as protectionist barriers rise.”
2. She believes international trade deals are no alternative to EU ties
Rachel Reeves does not see trade deals, such as the one with India, as a replacement for EU links (Image: AFP via Getty)
Ms Reeves argued: “[No] trade deal with any individual nation can outweigh the importance of our relationship to a bloc with which we share a land border, with which our supply chains are closely intertwined, and it accounts for almost half our trade.
“There is also a strategic imperative for deeper integration between the UK and EU – in our shared need for greater economic resilience. So my choice, the choice of this Government, is not to turn back the clock but to look towards a new and stable, future relationship.”
3. Alignment with the single market is on her agenda
President of the European Commission Ursula von der Leyen and Keir Starmer have a warm rapport (Image: Stefan Rousseau/PA)
The Chancellor said: “As the Prime Minister has said: where it is in our national interest to align with EU regulation, we should be prepared to do so – including in further areas of the single market.”
4. She has three tests for when UK should align with the EU
Rachel Reeves says the future direction of EU policy must be compatible with Britain’s values (Image: Kirsty O’Connor/Treasury)
She said: “First – that a decision to align should mean higher growth and investment, more jobs and consumer benefits for the long term. Second – that the future direction of policy should be sufficiently stable and compatible in terms of values and objectives. And third – that the UK’s economic and national security and resilience should be preserved or enhanced.”
5. She says setting our own regulations will be the ‘exception, not the norm’
Boris Johnson after signing the Brexit trade deal in 2020 (Image: Getty)
Ms Reeves said: “Now there are areas in which regulatory autonomy may be necessary – for sectors with unique characteristics or strategic importance for the UK. But that should be the exception, not the norm.
“To get this right, we must work more closely with businesses, both here and across Europe. But when the economic gains exceed the costs, the trade-off is worth making.”
6. She wants integration on energy and defence
Ed Miliband wants to transform how energy is produced in the UK (Image: PA)
Setting out the “prize” for the UK, she said the costs of doing business would be reduced, and there would be new opportunities for exports and to travel, work and study, adding there would be “a more resilient and more efficient energy system across Europe; and a deeper, more integrated defence industrial base among close allies, to repel common threats”.
7. She argues this will be good for the EU, too
Britain’s relationship with France will be critical to any UK-EU deal (Image: AFP via Getty)
The Chancellor said: “If we are to enhance the competitiveness of European industry in the face of global competition then we must work together, remove barriers between us and avoid collateral harm between trusted partners. It is in Britain’s and in Europe’s collective interest to respond to global challenges as a partnership, strengthening our global competitive advantage.”
8. She thinks no partnership is more important than Britain’s relationship with the EU
Rachel Reeves does not see the partnership with the US as more special than the EU (Image: Bloomberg via Getty)
Britain may be known for its “special relationship with the United States” – and it has won access to a trading partnership with Pacific-facing nations – but Ms Reeves said: “Britain’s future prosperity will not be built in isolation, but through partnerships with those who share our interests, share our values, and share our ambitions. And no partnership is more important than that between the UK and our European neighbours.”
9. She is up for a fight
Rachel Reeves sees closer alignment with the EU as the ‘right course for Britain’ (Image: PA)
The Chancellor said: “This will require us to make, and win, the political arguments. And believe me, I am up for it. Because I believe, absolutely, that closer alignment is the right course for Britain – a course chosen as a sovereign nation, a course chosen in our national interest.”
Shadow Foreign Secretary Dame Priti Patel this week warned the Prime Minister against pushing for closer EU alignment as part of his bid to stay in power.
She said: “Starmer is so desperate to save his own skin that he is resorting to reopening the divides of the Brexit years in the hope it will win him support. Starmer is so weak and focussed on fighting Labour’s internal civil war that he has no answers for the major challenges facing our country and wants to take us back to 2016.”