The three words which spring to mind when looking at Keir Starmer’s “reset” with the EU are birthright, mess and pottage.
Indeed, what we have got in exchange for a complete and abject surrender of much that we fought so hard for in 2016 and beyond probably doesn’t amount to even that proverbial mess of pottage.
We may, depending on the whim of the country concerned, be able to use e-gates, but there again, we may not. Starmer is already pleading with Greece to let our holidaymakers through.
He could not even negotiate a guaranteed right. However, even if he had, would it have been worth the surrender of our fishing zones? Does our great nation, which withstood the Blitz, now surrender independence just to get through a queue a bit quicker?
If Starmer hates queues so much, why does he not sort out the NHS?
We are returning once more to contributing to the EU budget, but this time, of course, without use. Starmer claimed to have no money for the winter fuel allowance, but he has plenty to donate to his chums in the EU. We are to accept EU interference in our decision-making and bow before its judges. No wonder Ursula von der Leyen was smirking. Macron must be opening the champagne.
And in return? We may be able to bid for armaments procurement contracts, without, of course, any guarantee of success.
Starmer trumpets the youth mobility scheme. What exactly does this deliver? Young people had been holidaying, studying and working in different countries long before the then EEC was more than a twinkle in Edward Heath’s eye.
One of my schoolfriends spent a year before university as a nanny in an Italian household, another spent an entire Summer holiday with a Spanish family, I went to Italy and Greece as part of my degree course in Classics, language students automatically spent a year in another country, school exchanges were and still are normal. What on earth do we need a “reset” for? Answer: to spare the poor souls the drag of applying for visas.
Three words sum up Keir Starmer's EU reset - all amount to a complete and abject surrender - Ann WiddecombeGetty Images
That, of course, is not the real answer. What Starmer is trying to do is return to free movement, and this is just the thin end of that wedge.
How many people will come here under the youth mobility scheme? How long will they stay? Will they bring family? What will it do to the immigration figures? Don’t hold your breath waiting for the answers.
Is it the end for Brexit? Probably not. As long as we are not in the single market and the customs union, we can claw back what Starmer has given away, including our fishing waters and our right to control our own borders in respect of all ages. What he can yield, Farage can restore.
A sovereign state can control its borders, its laws and its trade deals. That was what Brexit was supposed to deliver and would have done if only the will had been there.
We know that what the EU feared most was that we would become Singapore on the Thames, that just over the Channel, it would have a competitor which would use its new freedom to set tax regimes which would attract the inward investor and set its economy booming.
It is worth remembering that during John Major’s opt-out from the social chapter in the Maastricht treaty, Britain was getting 40 per cent of all the inward investment into the entire EU from Japan and the USA, just because we had the most flexible labour market. But Blair gave that up, as Starmer has given up Brexit rights.
All we need to reap the benefits of Brexit is a government determined to do so, but it will be another four years before that can happen.
Most Read
