Starmer’s ‘Brexit reset’ is even worse than you thought

It was all smiles yesterday at the UK-EU summit, as UK prime minister Keir Starmer unveiled his much-anticipated ‘Brexit reset’. European Council chief António Costa celebrated the ‘new positive energy’ between the EU and the UK’s Labour government. European Commission president Ursula von der Leyen praised the ‘historic’ deal, hailing it as a ‘new beginning for old friends’.

The EU side certainly had a lot to smile about. For Starmer and the UK government had, in the early hours of the morning just ahead of the summit, ceded significant chunks of the UK’s sovereignty, agreeing to accept EU rules over vast swathes of the British economy.

Starmer hailed the deal as a ‘win-win’ for both sides, and perhaps it was. No, not for the EU and the UK as such, but for the EU and the anti-Brexit blob that makes up much of the British establishment. It was a win for those who never saw the value of Brexit, sovereignty or ‘taking back control’ in the first place. For those who would prefer for Britain’s laws and regulations to be handed down from Brussels, without the say-so of the pesky voters or consideration of the national interest.

Under Starmer’s new deal, post-Brexit Britain is set to become a rule-taker in several critical areas: fishing, food, defence, energy and more. It also invites the European Court of Justice (ECJ), a ruthless enforcer of Brussels’ interests, to meddle further in British affairs, to ensure compliance with the new rules Starmer has signed us up to. The concessions are painful and immediate, while the gains are elusive and, in many cases, largely theoretical.

On fishing, Starmer’s team caved into a last-minute demand from the EU for the UK to extend the generous access that is currently granted to EU vessels – for another 12 years. Under the terms of the UK-EU free-trade agreement signed in 2020, Britain and Brussels were due to renegotiate the fishing rules in 2026, and then renegotiate annually thereafter, as Brussels currently does with non-members Norway and Iceland. Instead, the UK will not be able to assert its rights over its own territorial waters until 2038 at the very earliest – many, many years and likely several elections after Starmer will have left Downing Street. Given how much some EU members covet access to Britain’s waters, to the extent that President Macron was even willing to junk closer defence ties over fishing rights, Starmer’s deal sells out a great deal of leverage that might have been exerted by the UK in future negotiations.

On food, Starmer insists that the new deal will cut red tape at Britain’s ports, benefitting UK shoppers and exporters. He has explicitly promised that this will lead to ‘lower food prices at the checkout’. This seems unlikely. Not least as food in the UK has long been cheaper than in the EU, and there has been no divergence in food prices since Brexit, contrary to Remainer hysteria.

While the benefits of the food deal are uncertain, the price the UK is paying for it is unforgivable. The agreement will force British food regulations into ‘dynamic alignment’ with the EU, which is Brusselspeak for allowing the EU to set the rules. Worse, these rules are set to be overseen by the ECJ. In other words, it invites a foreign court – a court that acts in lockstep with the interests of Brussels – to meddle in the workings of a domestic industry.

Arguably the most consequential part of Starmer’s reset is that it puts the UK on the path towards ‘dynamic alignment’ – that dreaded phrase again – with the EU’s energy and climate policies. Although the UK’s industrial energy prices are currently the highest in the world, EU member states are not far behind. The Net Zero agenda, which has done so much damage to both British and European industries, could soon be enshrined for perpetuity via the EU.

One clear danger in Starmer’s deal is that it proposes that the UK rejoin the EU’s emissions-trading scheme (ETS). As I warned on spiked back in February, this will send Britain’s energy prices soaring. The ETS allows companies to buy credits for the amount of carbon they will emit each year. They can also trade these credits with other firms should they no longer need them. Since Brexit, the price of carbon credits in the UK has fallen significantly relative to those in the EU and there are plans to revamp the EU scheme to make carbon prices higher still. Signing up to the EU ETS can only hike the price of electricity (much of it still generated by gas), increase the cost of doing heavy industry and add to the price of petrol at the pump – all CO2-emitting activities that will be affected by the EU’s higher carbon prices. Yet this is something that Starmer’s team were reportedly eager to sign up to, believing it will ease certain exports to the EU and hasten the journey to Net Zero. This is an astonishing, wilful act of self-sabotage.

As for the ‘wins’ the UK has supposedly chalked up, Starmer has trumpeted the rights of Britons to start using the e-gates at European airports, cutting the much-bemoaned post-Brexit queues at passport control. In truth, the EU itself had never banned Britons from using the e-gates. Who can use the e-gates has always been up to member states and there is nothing in the deal that forces them to change policy.

On defence, it is hoped that British defence firms will be able to gain access to the EU’s new €150 billion arms-procurement fund, but a final decision has been put off for future negotiations, no doubt giving Brussels the chance to extract more concessions. No doubt Starmer will be only too eager to oblige.

To complain that Starmer is slippery and dishonest is, by now, like complaining that water is wet, but it is still worth dwelling on the shamelessness of this deal. Starmer promised that Brexit would be ‘safe’ in his hands before last year’s General Election, vowing not to take the UK back into any of the UK’s major institutions. He acted as if he had learned a lesson from the 2019 election, when Labour promised a second referendum and was trounced by the Tories who promised a clean break with Brussels. Indeed, barely a week ago, Starmer was still posing as a born-again Brexiteer. In a major speech on immigration, the UK prime minister promised to ‘finally take back control’ of Britain’s borders. Yet as his sell-out deal makes clear, he remains as committed to the EU as ever – to handing control back to Brussels.

Arguably, what most of us would see as unacceptable violations of British sovereignty, Starmer and the Labour government think of as a perverse form of progress. Elite Remainers like Starmer have an almost utopian view of the EU, seeing it as a motor of economic dynamism, a haven of political stability and a shining beacon of liberal, democratic values. They reject the evidence before their ears and eyes showing the exact opposite. The actually existing EU is a crumbling empire, an economic basket case and an anti-democratic oligarchy. Which is why 17.4million Britons voted to leave it nearly nine years ago.

Keir Starmer’s Brexit reset is far worse than a bad, one-sided deal. It is an affront to democracy. It sells out our sovereignty. And worst of all, this is precisely why its architects are so pleased with it.

Fraser Myers is deputy editor at spiked and host of the spiked podcast. Follow him on X: @FraserMyers.