Immediate reaction to the EU "reset"
Keir Starmer has done what he always intended: he sat down on the EU’s side of the table and gave them everything they wanted.
Immediately the details of Keir Starmer’s EU “reset” were known, I provided reaction in CityAM. The key points are:
The UK has agreed to dynamic alignment on sanitary and phytosanitary (SPS, ie agrifood) measures, meaning the UK will follow EU rules indefinitely without influence—unlike the mutual recognition model used by New Zealand.
By ceding regulatory control, the UK risks violating obligations in our free trade deals, potentially triggering legal disputes and taxpayer-funded compensation.
President Trump’s trade doctrine seeks to dismantle non-tariff barriers like those into which the UK just opted back in.
Following the EU’s Emissions Trading System means the UK no longer independently sets policy in this key area of environmental and economic governance.
The deal extends EU access to UK fishing grounds, undermining one of the most totemic gains of Brexit.
A vague new Security and Defence Partnership could compromise UK independence in defence and foreign policy, especially if tied to EU ambitions or funds.
Instead of seizing the opportunity to simplify and liberalise EU-originated rules, the UK is re-binding itself to them, risking stagnation in innovation and growth.
I concluded:
The deal prejudices the vital regulatory reform our economy so desperately needs. The UK has a once-in-a-generation opportunity to sweep away the dense thicket of EU-originated rules that suppress innovation, productivity and growth. Yet this deal binds us back into precisely those constraints on agriculture, preventing the regulatory freedom that would allow Britain to thrive as an agile, competitive economy.
This is not the behaviour of a confident, independent nation. It is the politics of decline. The Conservatives are right to pledge reversal.
Find the article in full at CityAM. I will write soon for paid subscribers on what the next centre-right government will need to do.
It seems that Starmer has never worked in the real business world. Ruining the UK's good reputation by giving away valuable assets is probably not a punishable crime but will ruin the UK's future.