According to the minister for Europe, Nick Thomas-Symonds, the UK must be “ruthlessly pragmatic” in its Brexit reset talks with the European Union.
Oxymoron or not, Sir Keir Starmer has proved himself in his leadership of the Labour Party to be the very epitome of ruthless pragmatism – and now, in his increasingly close relations with his European counterparts, he is making steady (if slow) progress in forging a genuinely new relationship with Europe.
It is, of course, inferior to the deal that prevailed before the UK left the EU five years ago – an act of unprecedented economic self-harm – but it is more ambitious and more practicable than his opponents would care to admit. Above all, it is the interest of the UK, the EU and the other nations on this shared continent. This, no doubt, has been and will continue to be the essence of the British “offer” to the EU.
The outlines of what may come to be known as the “Starmer reset” are already fairly clear. Put at its simplest, the British proposition is “defence for trade”. Britain, as ministers are keen to stress, is not merely some “demandeur” – as apparently President Macron thinks – seeking to renegotiate the flawed Brexit deal negotiated by Boris Johnson.
It is much more than the usual trade-offs involving border checks, customs admin, fisheries and novel schemes for young people to be granted pan-European freedom of movement. Those will certainly be part of the talks, and the UK should certainly embrace the mobility scheme and the technical Pan-Euro-Mediterranean (PEM) customs protocol; however, the entirely new dimension is that of defence and security cooperation. This is obviously not business as usual in the context of adjusting the EU-UK Trade and Cooperation Agreement, rather, adding a completely new chapter, with Britain bringing its strengths in defence, security and intelligence to the conference table.
The encouraging news is that the Europeans seem receptive to the idea – and progress has already been achieved. The facts on the ground changed markedly shortly after Brexit when Russia launched its second invasion of Ukraine in 2022, intending to wipe the country off the face of the map. It presages an era of increasing Russian aggressiveness on the continent. President Putin has made no secret of his abiding regret about the demise of the Soviet Union and its Eastern European empire. This now forms the eastern frontiers of the EU and Nato.
But the future of Nato and the reliability of America in the North Atlantic Alliance have been undermined by President Trump and the wave of isolationist opinion in the United States. Like it or not, Europe must increasingly look to its own resources, build solidarity, and construct what British sources term “a coalition of the willing”, ready to resist Russian aggression.
The European Union can – and must – play a central role in this nascent European defence community. There will be a considerable overlap. Yet for very good reasons, the EU cannot fully control it. Two essential members, Norway and the UK, are not full EU members; certain EU states, such as Ireland and Austria, may not feel able to give up their neutral status; and, for the moment, Hungary and Slovakia are more inclined to be sympathetic to the Kremlin than Brussels.
So, forming the European defence community will mean more than simply bolting on another “competence” to the European Commission; however, it’s very much a European project. It will need much industrial and financial cooperation as well as in defence and intelligence gathering. It should not replace Nato but one day it might have to; President Trump has made such an astonishing prospect all too realistic. After all, he has been busily bullying two Nato allies, Denmark and Canada.
Sir Keir has already secured a defence treaty with Germany, to be followed by France and Italy. The Joint Expeditionary Force is led by the UK and now comprises Denmark, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, the Netherlands, Norway, Finland, Sweden and Iceland – and has been active in supporting Ukraine.
In this new age of “ruthless pragmatism”, there does need to be more urgency to the Brexit reset and the much wider project of European security and defence cooperation.
Voters across the continent are impatient about irregular migration as well as malign Russian intentions. Too few European nations spend enough on what amounts to the collective defence of their homelands – and, outside the structures of Nato, there isn’t much military integration.
Sir Keir has the right instincts and sound proposals to make the whole of Europe safer as well as more prosperous. We shall see how far ruthless pragmatism will take him.
