Denis MacShane / Oct 2024
Photo: Wikimedia Commons
Sir Keir Starmer arrives in Brussels this week to meet Ursula von der Leyen. One great paradox of the British election in July election was the very clear repudiation of the flagship policy of the Conservative Party this century to isolate Britain from Europe.
506 MPs were elected from parties that opposed leaving Europe. Yet the posture of the current government seems little different from Brexit era Tory prime ministers.
In Paris recently, I described to a senior figure in France’s state administration the repeated mantra from Labour ministers of “No to the Single Market, No to the Customs Union and No to freedom of movement for Brits to work, live, retire on the continent.”
‘Alors, c’est le triple Non to Europe’ he replied. “Well you won’t get very far with that with the French government.”
Now Sir Keir is going to see the President of the European Commission, Ursula von der Leyen, an Anglophile from her time studying at the London School of Economics.
There is vague talk of a “reset” as the British economy reels from the impact of cutting links with the world’s biggest market. The City has lost its attractiveness as the go-too centre for listings in Europe as British passport holders in finance, law, investment, banking, the professions cannot jump on a plane anywhere in Europe and work as if they were at home.
Young Brits especially young artists who star at Europe’s innumerable music and other cultural festivals are hardest hit.
Type “reset” into Google Translate and you are offered réinitaliser, a word I have never heard used in French or zurucksetzen which in German sounds as clunky as it reads. A problem is most recent cabinets in London have had no Minister let alone a Prime Minister who has worked in Europe, understands from personal experience how the EU functions, or speaks any EU language fluently.
Ministers have spoken of a new defence agreement. This was tried by Tony Blair in the St Malo Declaration with President Chirac in 1998 or David Cameron’s Lancaster House Treaty with President Sarkozy in 2010. They made no difference. France and Britain pursued their own defence policies, especially on procurement, on a national basis.
Brussels can propose some amelioration of the barriers between Britain and Europe but they will need full reciprocity. Even the proposal to allow time limited visas for young people produced a knee-jerk reaction from ministers inaccurately claiming it meant returning to freedom of movement.
In a sense Labour is reverting to type. Labour Prime Ministers from Clement Attlee to Jim Callaghan scorned European cooperation. Callaghan in retirement declared that he “preferred Empire to Europe”. In the last interview he gave before his death the senior Labour politician Denis Healey, who shaped Labour policy on Europe from 1950 to 1985 said he would vote for Brexit in the populist plebiscite David Cameron proposed on Britain and Europe to win power in 2010.
In previous times, business took the lead in making the case for Europe but the different business outfits - the CBI, BCC, Make UK, NFU, other trade and industry federation, traditionally closer to the Conservative Party, are now unwilling to take any serious initiatives.
The question is how does Britain move to a more positive win-win relationship with our natural partners, neighbours and friends across the Channel? So far no-one has an answer. But it is time the question was at least asked.
