I wrote on Saturday about the sorry history leading to Monday’s summit meeting with the EU. Well, now we have Starmer’s deal, and it’s even worse than I thought.
As usual, the EU played hardball. While the British entry to Eurovision was sinking fast on Saturday night, so too was Starmer’s reset balloon, and the British team started chucking most of their negotiating ballast over the side in a desperate effort to keep it afloat. We’ll certainly remember this Monday. So what the hell just happened?
Five bad things. First, and despite Labour’s manifesto commitment to the contrary, we are rejoining the single market for agrifood. We must apply EU laws in our farming and food sectors, in all companies and farms, whether they trade with the EU or not, and EU courts will have the final say on disputes.
Labour seems to believe our food trade has collapsed and their deal will help. They simply don’t understand what’s going on. Reclassification, trade diversion, substitution of cheaper non-EU goods on our market, even the weather, all this is more important to the trade figures than trading paperwork.
Labour seem to think the British economic renaissance is going to be rebuilt on minor changes to a food and drink trade that amounts to 2-3 per cent of our exports, yet if they really believed this, why are they killing family farms and making them farm solar panels?
The actual effect of this deal will be to make it much easier for the EU, a much bigger, more successful, more diverse, and more expensive agricultural producer, to export to us.
Second, it commits us to joining the single market for electricity, the EU’s carbon trading scheme, and their scheme to put tariffs on carbon-unfriendly goods, the so-called CBAMs.
You may think that energy prices are high enough already, but watch this space, because the EU’s carbon price is 50 per cent higher than ours. Worse still, we commit to net zero obligations “at least as ambitious as the EU”. Want to get out of net zero? Tough: you can’t, unless the EU agrees.
Third, we’ve abandoned control of our fishing grounds – otherwise coming back in full next year – until the incredible date of 2038. The UK originally asked for four years and thought the EU might accept six or seven. We finally agreed to 12. Brilliant stuff. I’m reminded of Churchill’s wry comment on his dreadnought-building programme: “The Admiralty demanded six ships; the economists offered four; and we finally compromised on eight.”
This agreement destroys the prospect of rebuilding the fishing industry with our own fish stocks. Labour have promised a recovery fund, but more taxpayers’ money is not what the industry needs and it is not the same as building a productive fishing industry catching and selling a product that people want. Labour have been tin-eared to our coastal communities and they will pay the price.
Fourth, there will be a youth mobility scheme. It’s rebranded a youth “experience” scheme but the text makes clear that it’s for people volunteering “or simply travelling” (can’t they do this already?) There is no commitment to a cap on numbers, merely that the “overall number of participants is acceptable to both sides”. Who can have confidence Labour would be tough here? Let’s hope they don’t move their fisheries negotiator to youth mobility.
I wrote on Saturday about the sorry history leading to Monday’s summit meeting with the EU. Well, now we have Starmer’s deal, and it’s even worse than I thought.
As usual, the EU played hardball. While the British entry to Eurovision was sinking fast on Saturday night, so too was Starmer’s reset balloon, and the British team started chucking most of their negotiating ballast over the side in a desperate effort to keep it afloat. We’ll certainly remember this Monday. So what the hell just happened?
Five bad things. First, and despite Labour’s manifesto commitment to the contrary, we are rejoining the single market for agrifood. We must apply EU laws in our farming and food sectors, in all companies and farms, whether they trade with the EU or not, and EU courts will have the final say on disputes.
Labour seems to believe our food trade has collapsed and their deal will help. They simply don’t understand what’s going on. Reclassification, trade diversion, substitution of cheaper non-EU goods on our market, even the weather, all this is more important to the trade figures than trading paperwork.
Labour seem to think the British economic renaissance is going to be rebuilt on minor changes to a food and drink trade that amounts to 2-3 per cent of our exports, yet if they really believed this, why are they killing family farms and making them farm solar panels?
The actual effect of this deal will be to make it much easier for the EU, a much bigger, more successful, more diverse, and more expensive agricultural producer, to export to us.
Second, it commits us to joining the single market for electricity, the EU’s carbon trading scheme, and their scheme to put tariffs on carbon-unfriendly goods, the so-called CBAMs.
You may think that energy prices are high enough already, but watch this space, because the EU’s carbon price is 50 per cent higher than ours. Worse still, we commit to net zero obligations “at least as ambitious as the EU”. Want to get out of net zero? Tough: you can’t, unless the EU agrees.
Third, we’ve abandoned control of our fishing grounds – otherwise coming back in full next year – until the incredible date of 2038. The UK originally asked for four years and thought the EU might accept six or seven. We finally agreed to 12. Brilliant stuff. I’m reminded of Churchill’s wry comment on his dreadnought-building programme: “The Admiralty demanded six ships; the economists offered four; and we finally compromised on eight.”
This agreement destroys the prospect of rebuilding the fishing industry with our own fish stocks. Labour have promised a recovery fund, but more taxpayers’ money is not what the industry needs and it is not the same as building a productive fishing industry catching and selling a product that people want. Labour have been tin-eared to our coastal communities and they will pay the price.
Fourth, there will be a youth mobility scheme. It’s rebranded a youth “experience” scheme but the text makes clear that it’s for people volunteering “or simply travelling” (can’t they do this already?) There is no commitment to a cap on numbers, merely that the “overall number of participants is acceptable to both sides”. Who can have confidence Labour would be tough here? Let’s hope they don’t move their fisheries negotiator to youth mobility.