In an article, on Best for Britain’s sub stack, Joshua Edwicker reviews the personnel responsible for EU relations in Burnham’s new cabinet. On first glance it would appear that this team is more likely to support closer relationships with the EU without putting roadblocks in the way and will at least have more ambition, although he doesn’t talk about Shabana Mahmood staying at the Home Office.
My fear is that relationships with the EU we’ll take a back seat in the priorities of the Burnham administration. New policy needs to start from the fact that the “Reset” has failed, yet most of the PLP don’t realise it. Not a single initiative announced in May 25 has been closed. It would be too easy for this team to continue to try for incremental changes to the trading rules with the EU.
The EU will survive without the UK and it is changing up, most significantly for the UK via its Industrial Accelerator Act (IAA).
People, mainly convinced Brexiters, have been saying the EU has changed too much, it hasn’t yet, but it will, The IAA is likely to increase the UK’s barriers to entry EU markets, harm the UK economy, and thus the living standards of the UK people.
We must put more on the table and act with speed. I believe that membership of the EEA, is a minimum first step and that the European Movement’s 5 asks are minimal demands.
I came across a thread on bluesky which I felt I could helpfully add to. Here are my notes.
It is disappointing for those who wish to #rejoineu that Burnham’s team unlike some of the PLP, including possibly Starmer, feel the “Reset” has been a success. It must be noted that nothing agreed as agenda items at the May 25 EU-UK summit has been agreed.
It’s like a game of snakes and ladders, and Labour has just slid down a snake. I doubt that Starmer and NST would have moved far enough but as you say, the Burnham position is not better, nor more likely to succeed. Let’s hope it doesn’t take them two years to learn this.
It’s equally disappointing that a number of the think tanks and pressure groups seeking to advise the Labour Government seek to prove their expertise by popularising shortcuts. As you say, the redlines are in fact a Brexit position.
The “Makerfield test” is an act of extreme hubris, and stated after an election where in London, Labour lost control of 11 councils, where three are now led by the pro-EU Greens.
My CLP has moved a reference back on the Britain Connected section of Labour’s NPF, calling for full membership of the CU/SM and for a promise to negotiate terms to rejoin in the next manifesto.
See https://davelevy.info/rejoin-and-the-need-for-speed/ where I say, as part of an internal British polemic, that the EU will survive without the UK and it is changing up, most significantly for the UK via its Industrial Accelerator Act (IAA).
People, mainly convinced Brexiters, have been saying the EU has changed too much, it hasn’t yet, but it will, The IAA is likely to increase the UK’s barriers to entry EU markets, harm the UK economy, and thus the living standards of the UK people.
We must put more on the table and act with speed. I believe that membership of the EEA, is a minimum first step and that the European Movement’s 5 asks are minimal even short term demands and even then we and I focus too much on trade and money.
In today’s world we are in a better positon allied with a strong Europe than the other choices and we need to learn to be good neighbours and leave our imperial pretensions behind.
I added as a reply, when challenged on what EU leadership is required.
A problem with chats and micro-blogs; one often shortens the post and misses things out. On the question of Brexit and EU/UK relations, it’s for the UK to lead, and for Britain’s politicians to find some courage and confront the Brexiteers, rather than as in the case of Labour, triangulating with the hard-right.
Confronting the hard-right is something that also needs to be done in the EU and its member states. The growing trend by the EPP & the Commission led by UvdL, in seeking to rebuild an EP majority working with the right is likely to fail to help the EU grow and consolidate. As shown yesterday, it may well fail for them electorally.
It is the struggle against the far-right and their destructive and anti-democratic policies which requires leadership. I don;t see much of that in the EU or its member states.