Richard Tice says Keir Starmer’s EU summit has triggered alarm bells in Reform UK circles as they fear he is lining up Britain for a “big surrender”.
The Government is set to host EU leaders in London next week as part of its latest ‘reset’ with the very institution Britons voted to leave in 2016.
The prime minister is hoping to strike an agreement on British access to a 150 billion euro (£126.4 billion) defence fund.
Tice told GB News he fears Starmer is conceding too much to the EU and he should instead seek to extract more concessions from the bloc.
Richard Tice fears Keir Starmer is setting Britain up for a 'big surrender'
GB NEWS / PA
He said if Reform’s chief Nigel Farage were PM, he would not be engaging in talks with the EU until a returns agreement on small boat migrants was secured.
“We are being lined up for a big surrender”, Richard Tice told Martin Daubney.
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“The key issues in play is fishing where there’s a big renegotiation to be had and there’s the issue of dynamic alignment, which is quite technical.
“That basically means, do we align all our rules and regulations to theirs? We essentially then have to align with their rules which means we don’t get to get the opportunity to take advantage of the great benefits of Brexit that the Tories failed to take advantage of.
“It makes it harder to do trade deals with fast growing economies like the US and Asia.”
He continued: “If Nigel Farage was the prime minister, then I don’t think there would be this summit at all.
Richard Tice joined Martin Daubney on GB News
GB NEWS
“I think we’d be saying to the EU and in particular to France, there’s no summit until you pick up and take the boats back.
“We’ve got to actually have some proper hardball negotiations about the boats because the British people are focused on two issues at the moment, stopping the boats and bringing legal net immigration down to net zero.
“That’s why we did so well in the local elections.”
Tice also raised concerns about a possible UK-EU youth mobility scheme being thrown into the mix.
Keir Starmer is aiming to reset the UK-EU relationshipPAThe UK’s participation in the scheme would allow 18 to 30-year-old UK residents the opportunity to work in the EU for two years, and vice versa.
The Reform MP said it is a “rebadged version of freedom of movement” and will compound Britain’s population density woes.
“People should be under no illusion because guess what? It’s under 30”, he said.
“Almost all of the freedom of movement was, guess what? Under 30. They will say it’s for three years, but they’ll find ways to extend it and people will overstay.
“This will mean people, primarily Eastern Europeans, will come in large numbers to the UK. We don’t want or need more Eastern Europeans coming in and taking our housing, taking our health care capacity. We’ve had enough of it.”
Starmer adopted a more positive tone as he spoke to journalists in Albania this week.
“I’m confident we will make really good progress on Monday”, he said.
“If we do that we will have completed three agreements - India, US and EU - in the course of a two-week window, which is incredibly beneficial for our country.”
Starmer refused to divulge details of the deal but insisted the Government is making “good progress” in talks with the EU.
