Starmer’s Reset agenda cannot be centrally planned
Labour must remember a negotiation has more than one party
When it comes to Brexit, Keir Starmer knows how to tailor his message. He showed himself as a committed pro-European when it was time to win the support of Labour members in the party’s leadership contest. On his visits to Brussels and national capitals in the EU he tells leaders there that he is no Brexiteer. At the same time he declares to the press at home and to Leave-voting Tory-to-Labour switchers that he is certainly not a Remainer.
So who is he? In his own language, Starmer is a ‘Reseter’ – a position with a minimal electoral base but disproportionate representation in Westminster. He advocates for enhancing cooperation between the EU and the UK and for friendly relations between the two sides. He wants to do more but only within the context of a Hard Brexit, unwilling to disrupt that status quo. Having fully ‘moved on’ from the stormy arguments of the past, and dispensed with any lingering desire or resentment, Starmer wants Britain to be the chill ex that you can still be friends with.
Yet that goal rarely works out so neatly.
A big part of Starmer’s problem is that he has tried to define the ‘Reseter’ based on his own definition of what does or does not count as reversing Brexit. Rejoining the Single Market or the Customs Union are reasonably understood by everyone as at least partially reversing Brexit. But when Starmer says that youth mobility also counts but a security pact or an SPS deal do not, he steps onto much more treacherous ground. Failing to recognise that these concepts are not so easily separated out into pro- or anti-Brexit piles risks undermining support for the Reseter agenda, both at home and with the EU.
On the EU side, there is no inherent objection to the idea that stronger ties could be established with Britain without undoing the red lines that were established under the previous Conservative governments.
Indeed, the EU sees plenty of scope for going further than where we are today, arguably more so than the new Labour government.
This is precisely the problem.
While Starmer may say that, for example, youth mobility is akin to free movement and to reversing Brexit, the EU disagrees. This gap in understanding has already knocked confidence among EU policymakers over whether Britain is serious about resetting relations.
Domestically, Starmer risks losing support for Reset among his voters if they start to feel that the government is prioritising Brexit dogma over practical improvements.
Many will not be overly attached to youth mobility as a goal, even if they might support the idea. But they will likely be concerned if they see the government is jeopardising more fundamental, structural improvements to UK-EU relations because of an overly zealous interpretation of what counts as reversing Brexit. Those who currently back Reset as the first option may soon become supporters of Rejoin if Reset leaders end up looking and speaking too much like Brexiteers.
Faced with contradicting and somewhat arbitrary distinctions, some may conclude that the UK government does not really have a plan. They might assume that the lines being drawn around acceptable or unacceptable points for negotiation are being determined as we go along.
That conclusion would be understandable but probably unfair. Rather than Starmer completely lacking a vision of what a successful reset of UK-EU relations looks like, it’s more probable that this plan has been drawn up in a silo. The ideas that are up for negotiation and those that would obviously cross the line into ‘reversing Brexit’ have been defined centrally, mostly within the upper echelons of the Labour party, and unilaterally, with minimal consultation without outside groups (including people and institutions in the EU).
In method, if not in direction or objective, this would suggest we are repeating some key mistakes from the Tory Brexit years. The UK approach to talking to the EU and managing Brexit is being determined by an exclusive club within Westminster whose main focus is what the UK itself wants and what they believe the UK and EU both want.
In this way, not only is the Reset planned, it is perhaps too finely orchestrated, with its own internal set of trade-offs and political calls as Starmer tries to perfectly align himself between Brexiteer and Rejoin factions. Yet plans rarely survive contact with reality, and all the more so when that reality hasn’t really been factored in to begin with. Most obviously what appears to be missing is what the EU might want for itself from Reset and what the EU’s institutions and Member States might feel both the UK and EU should want.
We are early on both in this government and in the process of Reset. The EU’s institutions aren’t even fully formed right now. If the government wants the whole concept to work then they have time but will need to pull out from the silo and reassess how the negotiations might go. An insular attitude that only considers (some) of the UK electorate is unlikely to get very far. There is a real risk that trying to micromanage UK-EU talks will lead to inflexibility and rigidity from London that Brussels and national capitals will quickly find tiresome.
Starmer is building his Brexit strategy around Tory-to-Labour marginal voters and you can certainly argue there are good electoral reasons for that. But if he and his team want Reset to succeed, they’ll need to remember those voters aren’t the only ones they need to convince.
Very interesting. EU is definitely willing to negotiate a la carte "Mini-deals". It doesn't want to rewrite the TCA. But UK can't decide what cherries are to be picked,. Starmer is going to have to be ready to flex his red lines if he wants a package that will tangible reduce border frictions and the regulatory uncertainty weighing on investors. https://blogs.sussex.ac.uk/uktpo/2024/09/23/starmer-brexit-fixes-red-lines/