Former Brexit negotiator Lord Frost has criticised Sir Keir Starmer's proposed reset deal with the European Union, describing it as "a step back to being controlled by the European Union".
Speaking to GB News, Lord Frost expressed concern about the concessions the Government appears ready to make ahead of Monday's UK-EU summit in London.
Starmer is set to host the first UK-EU summit on Monday, where he hopes to make significant progress on his policy of a "reset" with Brussels.
Since coming to power last year, the Prime Minister has sought to avoid what he described as "megaphone diplomacy" with the EU, with ministers insisting they would not provide a "running commentary" on negotiations.
Lord Frost said Labour's reset deal is 'step back to being controlled by the EU'
GB NEWS
Lord Frost told GB News: “A lot of people seem to think we have no trade agreement with the EU at all. We've got this massive one that has been working perfectly well.
"But, of course, Labour have to say it's working badly to justify all the concessions that they're about to make in the next couple of days.
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“There were some teething troubles in the first days of this deal, but they've settled down, and there's no evidence of queues.
"There's no evidence of problems if, for example, you're thinking about airports, we already let European travellers through e-gates in UK airports, they don't allow us through.
"So if there's a problem, it's generated on the EU side, not on ours. We didn't see the need for a defence agreement.
"We're perfectly happy to talk about it, but we wanted there to be something that we got in return. The EU didn't want to offer that, so we didn't have a defence agreement.
“Now, Labour seems to be willing to offer it up for nothing. I don't know what we're getting out of this deal.”
He added: “We had to accept a slightly longer transition period than we wanted in 2020 but that transition is coming to an end in the middle of next year and we get full control of all our fishing grounds.
"So it's a particularly bad moment to suddenly decide to give all that up again and allow EU fishing boats to carry on fishing.
“We don't benefit in any way from it. What the Labour negotiators seem to have done is accept the EU's view which is to say we won't talk about what you want to talk about until you've accepted the things that we want.
Keir Starmer is looking for a new EU deal PA"And they put fishing on the table, and Labour have meekly gone along with it.”
Lord Frost added: “They never wanted Britain to be a completely free country. They in 2020 they worked really hard till the very last moment to try and keep us subject to their laws and courts."
The reset deal is expected to include measures to reduce border checks, allow Britons to use EU e-gates, and establish a youth mobility scheme.
Starmer has defended the planned youth mobility scheme, insisting it "is not freedom of movement" and will be good for "working people".
