In opposition, Keir Starmer pushed Brexit to the margin of debate. In government, he has learned that Europe is central to Britain’s interests whether you talk about it or not. The avoidance of painful arguments from the past turns out to be a handicap when making plans for the future.
This was predictable. Labour’s 2024 general election manifesto pretended that Brexit was a historical event. It was something Boris Johnson got “done” in 2020, in fulfilment of his winning campaign pledge from the previous year. The terms could be tweaked, but Starmer promised to preserve the substance. That was an indulgence of public fatigue with the whole issue, made electorally expedient by fear of offending former Labour supporters who had voted leave in the referendum.
But the relationship can’t be settled because the EU is an evolving project in a world of flux. It responds to international crises, with consequences for the ex-member on its border. The options are more Brexit, or less, never a steady state.
Johnson understood this perpetual motion. His deal was structured to accelerate separation over time. The theory was that divergence from EU rules gave Britain a competitive advantage. Any downside from friction in trade with the single market would be outweighed by gains from deals with other countries, chiefly the US. That was a Eurosceptic fantasy built on assumptions that open, low-tariff trade was an immutable fact of the world economy, and that nimble Britannia could negotiate on equal terms with whole continents.
The colossal wrongness of that view is now exposed. Vladimir Putin’s territorial aggression, Donald Trump’s geopolitical vandalism and China’s emergence as a superpower nearing parity with the US combine to form an irresistible case for Britain to make common cause with Europe. This means putting Johnson’s divergence ratchet into reverse.
Downing Street’s acceptance of that logic has been flagged by a gradual change in rhetoric. The prime minister used to say Brexit could be made to work. Now he lists it as an affliction in the same category as the Covid pandemic. The chancellor, Rachel Reeves, identifies closer integration with Europe as “the biggest prize” in a dash for growth.
To facilitate a more intimate relationship, the government proposes legislation that will give ministers open-ended powers to adopt EU standards for various sectors of the economy. There will be no requirement to ask parliament’s permission in every case. Such “dynamic alignment” is supposed to make it easier for businesses to move goods into the single market and make Britain a more attractive destination for investment.
Naturally, the Conservatives and Reform UK are appalled. They object to the circumvention of future legislative scrutiny by the use of so-called Henry VIII powers, although the same mechanism was used by architects of Brexit to engineer automatic dealignment. The real grievance is the old ideological one, equating any application of single market rules to colonisation by Brussels. Nigel Farage calls the proposed bill “a backdoor attempt to drag Britain back under EU control”.
The government insists there will be opt-outs and a scrutiny mechanism so that Britain’s economy won’t be a passive moon, orbiting planet Europe. How that will work in practice is hard to say because the plan for multisectoral economic alignment exists only in Whitehall imaginations. It isn’t yet a technical negotiation with the EU, except in the limited area of veterinary and agricultural goods.
The further Starmer tries to go in this direction, the harder he will collide with familiar Brexit obstacles. The European Commission will insist there can be no “cherrypicking” from the single market; that non-member states wanting to enjoy the benefits of a European club can expect to pay subscription fees into European budgets; that the chancellor’s coveted prize of free movement for goods comes as a package with free movement of people.
There is no escaping the trade-off between a political promise of undiluted national sovereignty and the blurring of borders required to maximise economic gains from integration. Or rather, there is an elegant solution to that problem, but it exists beyond the bounds of conceivable scenarios for the current government. It involves British ministers and parliamentarians exercising significant leverage – including vetoes – over the rules and overall direction of the EU from seats in all of its governing institutions. It is the model called membership. Its unique merits, amplifying national power through continental collaboration, are the reason why Eurosceptic railing against subjugation by foreigners was more of a xenophobic conspiracy theory than a description of the actual European project.
Opinion polls routinely show a clear majority of voters think Brexit has gone badly. The logic of pooling resources with continental neighbours can only grow in the light of wildfires started by Trump along the international horizon. Farage’s record of fawning advocacy for the arsonist president proves, as if more proof were needed, that he is an unreliable arbiter of UK interests.
Starmer knows these conditions permit a more assertive agenda of EU integration. But it is hard to take bolder strides within red lines – no free movement; no single market membership; no customs union – drawn when Labour’s Europe policy was defined by the preference to change the subject.
Paucity of ambition slows negotiations on the modest goals set in the 2024 manifesto. The EU is unwieldy in dealing even with its own internal affairs. And it has plenty of those to worry about before deciding whether to grant favours to a troublesome ex-member whose Brexit penitence might be superficial. Any deal on offer to a pro-European prime minister will include clauses insuring against backsliding by a Reform UK successor.
That is another reason to be less stealthy when moving back towards Europe. Starmer’s favoured method for approaching any issue is to creep up on it. His plan was to chip away at the case for Brexit by delivering the benefits of a better relationship with Brussels. The sequence should have been reversed. Being seen to win the big arguments at home is what earns goodwill for a better deal in Europe. To transform the relationship, to innovate a previously unthinkable model of UK-EU partnership, to break out of the desultory cycle of suspicion and low ambition, Starmer needed a less timid mandate.
It isn’t too late. Or at least there is less to fear, and not much left to lose, for an unpopular prime minister by talking about Brexit for what it is – not a deal to be revised or a condition to be managed but a tragic mistake to be corrected. Events have refuted every Eurosceptic myth. Britain has trudged long enough through the bog of Johnson’s lies, against the headwinds of false Faragist promises. The strategic, economic and political facts are now dynamically aligned for a change of course.
Rafael Behr is a Guardian columnist
Guardian Newsroom: Can Labour come back from the brink?
On Thursday 30 April, join Gaby Hinsliff, Zoe Williams, Polly Toynbee and Rafael Behr as they discuss how much of a threat Labour faces from the Green party and Reform UK – and whether Keir Starmer can survive as leader. Book tickets here
