Fixing Britain’s post-Brexit relationship with the European Union could spark a domino effect that will see more countries around the world offer the UK trade deals in a commercial ‘arms race’, senior figures in Whitehall believe.
Sir Keir Starmer has pledged to ‘reset’ Britain’s relationship with the EU, declaring at the government’s international investment summit yesterday that years of Tory rule denigrated Britain’s image in the eyes of European allies.
‘People want to know that Britain can be a stable, trusted, rule-abiding partner as we always have been… Somehow, during the whole circus that followed Brexit, the last government made a few people less sure about that, needlessly insulting our closest allies.
‘Well – no more. We have turned the page on that – decisively. And we will use that reset for growth,’ the Prime Minister said.
Now senior political advisers have suggested that a successful reconciliation with the EU would precipitate a flow of trade offers from countries further afield.
‘We hope that the ‘reset’ with the EU can have an important knock-on effect. And that would be that other countries, not in the EU, offer us enhanced trade deals,’ a senior Whitehall official told the Independent.
Sir Keir Starmer has pledged to ‘reset’ Britain’s relationship with the EU
Earlier this month Keir Starmer met European Commission president Ursula von der Leyen for talks in Brussels, promising to offer ‘pragmatic, sensible leadership’
Speaking at the International Investment Summit in London yesterday, Sir Keir told global business leaders it was ‘time to back Britain’, promising the captains of industry that his recently elected Labour government would ‘rip out the bureaucracy that blocks investment’ and slash red tape.
He also said he was ‘determined to repair Britain’s brand as an open, outward-looking, confident trading nation’.
The premier – treading a tricky path to be both pro-business and also pro-worker, with a series of new workplace safeguards for employees – placed great importance on the summit in the hopes he can court billions of pounds of foreign investment in UK projects.
Labour won a thumping majority over the Conservatives in July’s election but the government’s popularity has plummeted since.
Yesterday he said his focus is ‘not the days or hours of the news grid’ but on the ‘golden opportunity’ that his electoral mandate presents for delivering his central mission of growing the UK economy.
‘Private sector investment is the way we rebuild our country and pay our way in the world. Make no mistake, this is a great moment to back Britain,’ Starmer said.
He promised that where regulation is currently ‘stopping us building the homes, the data centres, warehouses, grid connectors, roads, train lines, you name it, then mark my words – we will get rid of it’.
‘We will rip out the bureaucracy that blocks investment,’ he added, promising that his administration ‘will make sure that every regulator in this country’ takes growth ‘as seriously as this room does’.
British Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer speaks with leaders from across the UK during the International Investment Summit on October 13
While the Prime Minister delivered his keynote speech at the summit in London, Foreign Secretary David Lammy joined European counterparts at a gathering of foreign ministers in in Luxembourg
While the Prime Minister delivered his keynote speech at the summit in London, Foreign Secretary David Lammy joined European counterparts at a gathering of foreign ministers in in Luxembourg, with the agenda including cooperation on the Middle East crisis and the Ukraine war.
It is the first time in two years the UK has been at such a gathering, and it is being seen as another step in Sir Keir’s drive for closer relations with the bloc.
It comes as London Mayor Sadiq Khan said the UK’s eventual return to the European Union’s single market should not be ruled out, despite Sir Keir making it a red line in his ‘reset’ talks with Brussels.
Khan acknowledged this week there was no short-term hope for rejoining the single market, which would give greater trade access to the bloc but would also come with the return of freedom of movement.
He said, however, that barriers to trade with the UK’s closest neighbours should come down and the single market was ‘something we shouldn’t be scared to talk about’.
Khan also backed the idea of a scheme for young Britons to live and work in the EU, and vice versa.
Speaking at the summit, yesterday he said: ‘I’m quite clear that all successful countries do the most trade with their nearest neighbours, that’s one of the signs of success.
‘We’ve got on our doorstep, not just friends and colleagues and family indeed, we’ve got a market of more than 500 million people.
‘The good news is the Prime Minister spent a lot of the last three months visiting friends in Europe, whether it’s the president of France, the prime minister of Italy, the chancellor of Germany or the European Union, indeed, in Brussels.
‘The current Brexit deal we have comes up before review next year. I’m hoping, unlike last time, there will be closer alignment, rather than divergence.
‘We should be looking at a whole host of issues and talking about them – whether it’s a youth mobility scheme, whether it’s seeing what we can do to bring people closer together.
‘I think the reality is, in the short term, we probably aren’t going to get back as members of the single market. But it’s something we shouldn’t be scared to talk about.’
