Labour's EU negotiator wages war on Nigel Farage amid plans to 'permanently align' Britain with Brussels

WATCH: Nick Thomas-Symonds refutes suggestions Labour are taking UK back into the EU

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GB NEWS

Sophie Little

By Sophie Little


Published: 27/08/2025

- 05:37

Updated: 27/08/2025

- 06:03

Nigel Farage 'wants Britain to fail', Nick Thomas-Symonds is set to claim in a fiery address today

Labour's top EU negotiator is set to wage war against Nigel Farage today amid plans to "permanently align" Britain and Brussels.

Nick Thomas-Symonds is expected to line up a series of attacks against the Reform UK leader over his opposition to a core tenet of the UK's "reset" deal with the EU: The Sanitary and Phytosanitary (SPS) provisions.


Labour believes a new SPS agreement could lower food prices and increase choice on supermarket shelves.

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A temporary agreement was put in place in June which halted checks on some fruit and vegetables imported from the EU.

The deal will expire in January 2027.

Nick Thomas-Symonds

Cabinet Office Minister Nick Thomas-Symonds is expected to slate Nigel Farage during an event on Wednesday

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HOUSE OF COMMONS

And Labour has its eye on a permanent deal regarding food and drink with the EU within the next 18 months - which Mr Farage has vowed should be thrown out.

Mr Farage will draw the fire of Mr Thomas-Symonds during an event hosted by The Spectator in London on Wednesday.

During the event, which will focus on the Government's priorities for the UK-EU relationship, Mr Thomas-Symonds will say Mr Farage is "siding with the promise of more red tape, mountains of paperwork, and a bureaucratic burden".

The Reform UK leader had warned that the SPS deal would bring the UK "back into the orbit of Brussels, giving away vast amounts of our sovereignty for very little in return", writing for The Telegraph.

The Tories, meanwhile, had branded the entire "reset" a "Brexit betrayal".

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Keir Starmer and Ursula von der Leyen

Nigel Farage had warned that the SPS deal would bring the UK 'back into the orbit of Brussels'

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PA

But the EU deal-maker will say: "Nigel Farage's manifesto at the next election will say in writing he wants to take Britain backwards, cutting at least £9billion from the economy, bringing with it a risk to jobs and a risk of food prices going up.

"Farage wants Britain to fail. His model of politics feeds on it, offering the easy answers, dividing communities and stoking anger."

Mr Thomas-Symonds will also pledge that Labour will take "decisions rooted in the national interest, not party interest. Putting in the hard yards, not resting on empty slogans".

He is also set to claim that returning Britain to Brussels's orbit on food standards will boost growth, lower prices, and represent "sovereignty, exercised in the national interest".

Nigel Farage

Mr Farage has previously called for the deal to be thrown out

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PA

A spokesman for Reform UK said: "No-one has done more damage to British business than this Labour Government.

"With 157,000 fewer people on payroll since Labour took office, their jobs tax is stifling success and hitting small and medium sized businesses across the country.

"Cosying up to the EU and leaving us entangled in reams of retained EU law which Kemi Badenoch failed to scrap will not resuscitate Britain's struggling economy."

The Government vowed to halt border checks on "medium-risk" fruit and vegetables from the continent, including tomatoes, grapes and peppers while a permanent SPS deal was negotiated.

The checks were due to be brought into force this summer - while, at the moment, the Government says an agreement is "forthcoming".

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