Single market, customs union and a poison pill.

Single market, customs union and a poison pill.

In an article, Starmer prepares for parliamentary battles over imminent EU ‘reset’ bill, jessicaelgot suggested that there is movement on the “red lines”. It is clearer on reading that this is an attempt to accelerate UK agreement to the currently on-going trade negotiations by increasing the powers of the relevant ministers.

The article uses the phrase swiss-style agreement which is highly unlikely to succeed and at the best is tone deaf as to the EU’s needs and wants.  

UK in a changing Europe, document what they see as the timetable and goals of the current reset negotiations.I see them as optimistic, and everyone seems to forget that the EU’s starting point is full implementation of the withdrawal agreement and Windsor framework; there remain, even 18 months after the general election, eight infringement proceedings unresolved.

It’s sort of interesting that they think they need new language, but to me, they have not yet changed their mind.

I also see this as a means by which the Government deflects the internal Labour Party pressure towards joining the Customs Union by posing, parts of, the single market as an alternative. It is disappointing to see so many seeing the Customs Union as sufficient advance, but the UK economy and people need and want membership of both, including, reciprocal, free movement of  people.

Labour should join the customs union and single market now and promise to rejoin the EU in its next election manifesto.

Various news sources, including the Brussels Times, report that EU is demanding a “poison pill” clause in further agreements, to make the cost of revoking the new treaties exorbitant. This should have been proposed by the UK side, and without it negotiations would stop.

I predict they won’t until they abandon the strategy of triangulating against reform and that will take significant personnel changes in the Government.

Image: from PIxabay, their licence …

A breeze in Downing Street

A breeze in Downing Street

Are we moving closer to joining the EU? It's been quite an eventful month, culminating in Wes Streeting’s call for the UK to join the EU’s Customs Union. This article looks at the current state of thinking of HMG on negotiations with the EU, comments on the velocity and direction of travel, contrasting the red lines vs the numerous programme adoptions, recent polling evidence that a majority of people in the UK now want to rejoin, the House of Commons vote on rejoining the customs union, and the announcement of the UK’s rejoining Erasmus+, the EU’s student exchange scheme. It concludes looking at a Guardian EB piece questioning if British Politics is fit to survive the current challenges and the Labour Party’s abysmal response. The full article, is overleaf, use the "Read More" to see it ...

UK–EU Defence: Stronger Together

nato warships

How damaging is the European union’s rejection of the UK’s attempts to join its SAFE programme; SAFE Is the European Union’s new defence funding programme.

The most succinct report that I can find is on Euroweekly News in an article, entitled, “UK excluded from €150bn EU defence deal” which states that,

On November 28, the UK government announced that negotiations to join the EU’s €150 billion Security Action for Europe (SAFE) defence fund had failed, marking a significant blow to what had been billed as a “reset” of UK‑EU post‑Brexit relations.

However, Euroweekly News, also states that SAFE has a 35% access to 3rd party countries, which some might consider generous given that the programme is to be funded by ECB bond issue of €150bn. The cap is however per contract which would, almost certainly, for instance, make selling warships ineligible for SAFE funding, not to mention the fact that numerous EU countries can build both warships and warplanes. The EU were asking for a UK contribution, some might say, a large contribution, to the fund, before lifting the cap to 50%. It also interests me that the whole argument is about selling to the EU, and not the UK buying European weapons, although the Euro benefit to this is massively undermined by the UK decision to buy US warplanes and more US nukes.

The UK proving once again that it is “a nation of shopkeepers” walked away from this deal.

Defence co-operation was meant to be the most advanced topic of the EU-UK May reset agreement. Even with defence on the table, cherry-picking is unacceptable to the European Union as is the UK’s insistence that every deal must benefit the UK.

Image Credit: NATO …

Digital Justice in the EU

Image Sign in front of the CJEU's Palais de la Cour de Justice

The Commission of the European Union has issued a report proposing what they call the digitalization of justice. At the moment, this is mainly about best practise, although it seems they plan to improve digital access to the European court’s case law. A commentary has been made by the EU’s agency for fundamental rights cautiously welcoming the report but highlighting both the risks to privacy and the threat that such schemes will fail to improve justice for citizens, or worse. A further commentary can be found at the EU Observer, taking an equally cautions approach.  …

The EU Hokey Cokey

dancers in a european square

I watched the first day of the EU UK parliamentary partnership assembly. The first session was on general issues & trade and the second on defence. I made some notes which you can read overleaf. Following the agenda of the meeting, I talk of Trade and Defence in two parts. Throughout, I question the UK's half hearted commitment. Use the read more button to see the whole article. ...

Tariffs and other trade barriers

image of the alaskan highway

Last night I watched a video about Canada raising a large toll on lorries travelling from the Lower 48 to Alaska, and it documents and forecast the impact on the fragile Alaskan economy. It reminded me of the trade barriers that the UK has put in place due to Brexit. This is potentially disastrous for Alaska, and is clearly so for the UK where today the FT reports that according to the ONS, the UK economy shrank for the second quarter in a row.

The trade to GDP rate in the UK is 63%, which seems enormous to me, but it seems to be merely above average and yet it illustrates the UK’s dependency on the rest of the world to feed itself and keep itself warm and sheltered. The US rate is 25% which is low by international comparison and may be one of the reasons that Trump can afford to be as foolish as he is with his tariff policies, noting that it’s the US consumers who ultimately pay his tariffs. Source: World Bank.

The EU flag, before castor and pollux,

But for the UK, this is another piece of evidence that the UK needs to rejoin the EU’s single market, but even if this common sense actually strikes this Labour government, I doubt that the Eire/Holland/France traffic will return to the UK. …

Human Rights

Image Sign in front of the CJEU's Palais de la Cour de Justice

At a meeting yesterday, I asked about/EU/UK cooperation within the justice pillar.  I asked if in order to develop further cooperation, the UK would need to sign up to the EU’s charter of fundamental rights. The senior MEP present stated that they thought that self-exclusion was a barrier to fuller cooperation; the Labour minister present confused the Charter of Fundamental Rights with the European Convention on Human Rights and stated that non-compliance, particularly on issues of the right to family life were reasonable. This is a proof point of the consensus in Westminster that haggling with the EU ‘to win’ all the time, is acceptable behaviour of good citizenship.

The reason we had so many opt-outs from the Justice Pillar is that the New Labour governmentdidn’t want their immigration and trade union laws tested by the CJEU and as reprise act, I read that ‘blue labour’ are questioning whether we should remain signatories to the ECHR.

In 2024, there were three cases at the ECtHR, and the UK lost one; the plaintiff was the Daily Mail who were complaining about lawyers’ fees in cases where they settled, they claimed it was in breach of their rights of free speech. The last time I looked this up, the problem was within the administration of justice and prisons if I remember correctly. The Tories harsh environment in prisons was considered in conflict to human rights law.

But the reason we should remain members is that human rights are a benefit to all citizens and residents.

Image Credit : Luxofluxo, CC BY-SA 4.0 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0, via Wikimedia Commons …

Second thoughts on the Euro-summit

Kier Starmer and Ursula von der Leyen in a conference room

It is my view that Starmer wants a Swiss style deal with the European Union. The reason I consider the summit to be a draw, albeit a score draw, is that neither of the end goals of rejoining nor staying out with a Swiss style agreement are closed off. But also, neither is the end result of the EU saying we’re too busy to spend this time “dot & comma-ing” with you.

There is no inexorability in rejoining from that agreement as I believe is implied by John Palmer’s Chartist piece. Perhaps, John  believes that Trump will drive even Starmer away from NATO but I believe they will try very hard not to make the choice. In fact, I believe the proposal for a defence/security agreement is deliberately made to allow trade-offs against the single market acquis and to try to exclude security which includes border control co-operation from the Charter of Fundamental Rights and the EU Court of Justice’s jurisdiction.  

I also believe much of Labour’s defence positioning is designed for internal party combat and learnt from simplistic board games.

However, ihis article, entitled “EU officially retires its ‘no cherry-picking’ Brexit line” may show that the new Commission (and maybe even the Council), are happier with a deal with opt-outs; even then, I am not sure I’d want to start from the withdrawal agreement.

I believe that those of us who believe that it’s a better world with a democratic EU still need to seek to influence the Labour Party and Government.

Image Credit: from flickr, Keir Starmer’s feed, CC 2024 BY-NC-ND …