‘Britain’s gone from being a leading EU member state to a backwater’

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The Accidental Diplomat, a column by Paul Knott

Why Keir Starmer faces a huge challenge to renegotiate a better Brexit deal

“Brexit has failed” according to its chief fundamentalist preacher, Nigel Farage.

Polls indicate that at least two-thirds of the British people agree. In response to this shift in public opinion, Labour Party leader Keir Starmer has announced that any future government led by him will seek to renegotiate the Brexit deal with the EU. But is this verdict on Brexit reasonable and would Starmer be able to salvage something better for Britain?

On the economy, the Brexiters have, in a cynical sense, been lucky. Since Brexit, the Covid pandemic and Russia’s assault on Ukraine have caused economic problems for most of the world. This has disguised some of the damage done by Brexit and been exploited by the government to claim Britain’s serious economic struggles and cost-of-living crisis are the consequence of other issues.

But Britain’s lower growth rate and most other economic indicators prove that its plight is markedly worse than that of other comparable European countries. And the only significantly different factor between those countries and Britain is Brexit. By opting for Brexit, Britain erected barriers to trade with its biggest business partners and pretty much guaranteed it would end up worse off. Many people in Britain now appear to have recognised this through their own experiences at work or in their declining standard of living.

As just one small anecdotal illustration of what is happening on a much larger scale, I recently spoke to a Dutch friend who runs an off-licence. Since Brexit, he has stopped stocking Scottish Whisky – previously one of his most profitable lines – because the red, white and blue tape now involved in importing it from Britain means it is not worth the hassle.

His business is fine because he can source and sell alternatives from EU member state Ireland instead. But the British producers and suppliers of this and thousands of other products are beginning to suffer, as the slow squeeze Brexit is imposing on them starts to bite. Over the coming years, the people who will feel the worst impacts of this steady decline are the millions currently employed by such companies.

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During the referendum campaign, Brexiters like Farage, Boris Johnson and Jacob Rees-Mogg said Brexit would make you better off. Now, they claim Brexit was never about money. That is, of course, easy to say when you already have as much of it as they do.

These same self-interested right-wing politicians are using equally slippery language about one of the other major concerns of the Brexit campaign – immigration. This has gone up sharply since Britain left the EU. These days, the Brexiters say it was all about taking greater control of immigration, not reducing it. Again, that’s not the campaign message they peddled to those members of the public who were concerned about the issue and not what most of them voted for.

In any case, Brexit has failed to achieve greater control over immigration. What Britain lost was essential and economically beneficial short-term migration by the Europeans who staffed farms, care homes, hotels and restaurants, before usually returning to their home countries. What it now has is increased uncontrolled immigration from all over the world via “small boats” and the like. The government is unable to control this influx because its Brexit implementation ripped up the cooperation we previously had with our European neighbours on managing immigration.

The other flagship Brexiter issue was the poorly-defined concept of “sovereignty”. The list of things Britain’s government has done with that supposed “sovereignty” to improve peoples’ lives since “taking back control” is a short one. In fact, it is not a list at all, as I cannot think of a single item to put on it.

With Brexit clearly having failed even in the eyes of its advocates, the next question is whether there is much a Starmer-led Labour government could do to rectify matters.

Britain’s long established and valuable international reputation as being a stable, sensible and reliable country to deal with was destroyed by Boris Johnson and his ilk. That reputation will not be rebuilt quickly. One of the few points of view that unites this fractious world from China to the US and almost everywhere in between is when they look at Britain, they all think “Brexit - what on earth were you thinking?”

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That is, on the rare occasions they think about Britain at all. As a Brit living on the European mainland, I am in a decent position to see in both directions. My impression is that most Britons, leading politicians especially, have yet to realise how much their country’s actions over recent years have reduced its international relevance. The world moves on quickly. Having voluntarily surrendered its influence, Britain is no longer one of the first places people approach when action to shape the world we live in is needed.

This diminished status is most obvious in Europe. There, Britain has gone from being a leading EU member state with the power to push through almost any major initiative it favoured (such as the Single Market and expansion of the EU to Central Europe) and opt out of anything it did not like (the Euro currency and the Schengen single European visa system), to being a backwater with almost no influence over what happens in its own neighbourhood.

This is where the crux of the challenge would lie for Starmer and any new British government. The EU has a lot of other things going on that it must deal with and no incentive to reopen the irritating issue of Brexit. Britain may be struggling in its aftermath but the EU has no problems with the current deal. Economically, Britain has little of any importance to offer EU member states that they cannot source from Spain or Slovakia or somewhere else within their much larger internal market.

The reality is that, if Britain wants to maintain and increase its trade with the EU, then it will have to conform to EU rules and standards voluntarily, just as many other non-member states do in order to have access to its lucrative market.

That is not to say that there is nothing that can be done to improve matters. Purely based on how normal human relations work, a British government that is more trustworthy, competent and less obnoxious in its rhetoric about other Europeans will automatically receive more of a hearing from them. We are already seeing this in some extremely limited ways from the European response to the Sunak government.

Then, having opened the door just a crack, Britain will need to display great skill in identifying issues and pursuing ways where it can make itself useful and relevant again. Defence and security is one obvious area because Britain, as it has shown with its support for Ukraine, remains one of Europe’s main military powers. The climate crisis and energy security is another, with the UK’s significant wind power potential being a possible means to help Europe achieve its net zero objectives and find long-term alternatives to Russian gas.

By steadily rebuilding its reputation as a reliable and useful partner in this way, Britain can then begin to push for the more favourable trading terms that will help it retain and create more well-paying jobs for its people.

Completely rebuilding relations with Europe will not, though, be a quick fix and anyone expecting the next government to be able to deliver one is likely to be disappointed.