Coffee House Shots
What's behind Starmer's 'reset' with Europe?
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So the purpose of the visit, as you allude to, is, effectively, we know that the Labour Party, now the Labour government wants to have close ties with Europe. They've been fairly upfront about some of that. In the sense, you know, I think you've heard them talk about how they think it makes geographical sense in a changing world, particularly on security when you look at where America might go, I suppose, and have a protectionism. But also whether focus could be on security more towards China than perhaps to Ukraine. I see what happens in Taiwan. And then also, if you look at some of the partners you might rely on, the Labour argument goes, well, we should hug those who are closest and Europeans are like-minded and we can reverse some of the bad blood from Brexit just by having a more positive rhetoric and exchange. So they've been at various visits so far. And I think this visit to Germany, obviously before Kijestam and then goes to the Paralympics and it will also meet Emmanuel Macron, is being sentenced around this idea of this new trade treaty, this new general cooperation on several levels. But I think there's a question as to what is Labour trying to do more widely on Brexit? Shultz and Kijestam, I think, are probably the closest to having a bromance of the European leaders. They've met many times at this point. I think the German press just said they're both seen as being a bit dull. Perhaps that's why they get on so well. That's one German paper used a few months ago. And they are both Social Democrats. They have similar politics. One is doing a lot better in the polls currently than the other. And when it comes to this treaty with Germany, it's interesting that they've set their timetable for six months, I think partly because at the moment at least it seems ambitious. The shots will necessarily be there in the year or so's time. So there is a reason to act quickly. But where there can be cooperation on these things is this part of a wider reset whereby you're going to start to try and get to commission level. Because if you want to have big changes in terms of how we trade with the EU, that's where you need to get to. And that's when you get to concessions, which currently down in the street does not want to talk about. And Sophia, at that point about the Brexit negotiations, what happens, obviously, the deal comes up in 2026. We were talking before the podcast about how Kierstammer actually, if you look at a lot of different metrics, has a huge labor majority, has publicly been on the side for how more pro-EU measures, youth mobility scheme. How far can you really go in not potentially rejoining the European Union, but actually getting much closer to Europe without antagonizing those fears that you could get to a position where labor was in the late 2010s, when actually Brexit was a real weakness for them? How can you make Europe a virtue for Labour party as he tries to fill his domestic goals? We've got two barriers. You've got the domestic barrier here. The political Overton window on Brexit hasn't actually really caught up to where a lot of public opinion is at. And of course, where Labour's enormous majority in parliament is actually at. But these are the political realities. And I think Stammer is credibly concerned that should he scare the horses on Europe and getting too close with the EU, that that will become the story of his entire first term and it will suck all their energy away. And he'll end up being sort of in this vortex that Brexit has consumed so many other different prime ministers over the last several decades. So I think he's trying to avoid that partly because he wants to get a lot of things done domestically. But at the same time, so much of his domestic agenda is contingent on things like growth, energy security, dealing with this crisis around irregular migration. And for that, he actually needs some help from our European partners. So there's this kind of interesting matrix here that he has to, you know, a very tight type to rope that he has to navigate very deftly. I think that the reality is that we are going to move closer to the EU position on several areas and deal with some of the low hanging fruit around the EU relationship in this parliamentary term. But I think that would be really rigid around that single market and customs union red line. And what that means is you have to look for all the other sort of creative solutions. I think what's really interesting is a lot of the groundwork for this German relationship has actually been laid through the UK France summit that was actually held when Rishi Suneck was prime minister last year in those sort of healthy and moments after the winds of framework was unlocked. And that summit behind the scenes was really interesting because we actually got to see the areas in which France was willing to move on that perhaps in public had been considered red lines and wouldn't even engage in those conversations when the negotiations were taking at an EU level. So I think what that's shown to the British system is that the politics of this is really important. Yes, there are limitations to what you can do outside of the EU and the TCA. But there are some things that can be massaged around the margins, particularly in terms of inward investment, attracting German businesses to invest, German defence companies to invest, R&D, all sorts of things that you can do outside of the TCA that don't step on those red lines, but can actually help to drive economic growth in those kind of key domestic agendas. Yeah, I mean, Katie, one of the things that Spheres has written about today is actually about how originally the challenge within the British government has been integrating the kind of foreign mission with a domestic mission. And the line that jumped out to me from Kistama's press conference today was saying growth is my number one mission. And of course, it sounded just like yesterday's press conference in the downstreet garden. We talked about wealth creation. And so it's unusual to have kind of messages for a purely domestic political audience, talking about economic growth at home, really in a foreign context. I mean, does Labour really see that the way in which you can boost its growth mission is by doing these kind of foreign deals abroad and actually trying to do things around the margins and thinking creatively, as Spheres says with Europe? Yeah, I mean, I think the general view in Labour, and you've got to remember every member of the cabinet back staying in the EU, and a large part of that argument was an economic argument. Pretty sure though some who also have in Labour feel not an almost romantic attachment, perhaps to the EU in terms of what it represents since I was working together. But the main argument in that referendum was it is going to be economically problematic to leave the EU. You follow the logic, and many Labour politicians take the view that closer relations to the EU in terms of working together on markets, in terms of attracting investment, is where they need to go. I think that also because this Labour government, as far as I can tell, has very little interest in diverging. And it does slightly beg the question, you know, does Keir Starmer want to do much of Brexit powers? Now, you can argue the last Tory government didn't do that much for the Brexit powers, but I think particularly, you know, when you think about what the EU wants in certain countries, you know, I think aligning, whether you call it, you know, alignment, whether you find a different way to dress it up, and the UK just magically happens to have the exact same standards as the EU and various other things. That is something I don't think most Labour politicians would break too much of a sweat about, whereas if we are talking about the Tory parliamentary party, this idea of free trade deals, and where you can get ahead, and perhaps what it means, you know, in terms of certain crops and Gina, all this, that's the kind of thing where they would want to have a big conversation about it. Because that's not where the Labour party is, I agree so they don't want to talk about the customs union, because it feels like a big step, and people at home might have known what it is, and does that look like you are reversing Brexit? But you can get pretty close to things around that, and that is not, you know, something which I think the Labour government is too worried about. I think where the Labour government is concerned is anything that looks like it's resembling freedom of movement. You think about where the reform party is at the moment, when it comes to the seats where they probably came second in the general election. Lots of them, you know, particularly faces in the north of what we might call the Red Wall seat, some of those. It's reform that's in second place, and you see Labour have dropped a few points. Obviously they've got four and a bit years to get those points back, or to lose more depending. But they dropped a few points, and they seem to be going to the reform party, not to the Tory party, you know, not to the Lib Dems. And therefore, I think, you know, when Kirstaman talks about battling populism and so forth, they're not going to want to do much, which, you know, gives into perception that they're not controlling immigration. And you can see that in the current discussions, be it with Germany and other countries, because what would Schultz and others like, they would like this youth mobility scheme, whereby you have under 30s coming to the UK and vice versa. It's what most of the member states would like. And yet you have had Downing Street repeatedly say, we're not doing this. I think Downing Street are also saying they won't do Erasmus, which is obviously the university scheme. I was speaking to a few Tory MPs last night, they were saying, even we are OK of Erasmus. But I think, you know, there's obviously a question university funding on Erasmus. But I think it also just speaks to, I can, you know, a fear in Labour, as soon as you get to anything that looks like it could be, you know, edging into freedom of being more of a path back to it. That's when they get to the vote of backlash. But that is going to be a restraining force in terms of the parameters of how far you can go on these things. Just on the youth mobility scheme, I mean, I think Brussels made that there was an error in that being launched out into the stratosphere during the election campaign. I think anticipating a Labour victory and anticipating that that would mean they would want to act quickly on these sorts of things. In reality, Labour is being extremely cautious for all the reasons that Katie has outlined. But I really think that these, particularly the under 30s mobility scheme, and again, that is something that came up in the UK, France summit as well. Why is the EU, why are EU member states so interested in that? Well, it's because it was actually a very bad and official thing for their young people to come to the UK, to live in a free and prosperous society, to contribute, to get some really good work experience, you know, in a globally competitive way, and to learn English. Right? So that actually was very valuable for the EU member states, which is why they're very interested in it as well. With Erasmus, you know, I think everybody just believes in that as a common good that research and academic collaboration. And so that's actually quite popular in public opinion as well. I think we will get to both of those things over time, but I really strongly believe that the stomach government does not think that it is going to be possible for them to move to those things until they can project a feeling of grip on the irregular migration problem, which is, again, something that they feel they need to unlock with the EU. And one of those key points about shared interests as well, which they're talking about today, about sharing intelligence, etc. Just to say also, I mean, defence was a key cornerstone of today's talks and summit as well. It was about Ukraine and kind of the UK and Germany on that standing together. You wrote today's fear about how, you know, Germany has really sort of changed its defence posture since the invasion of Ukraine at the beginning of February 2022. Talking about sort of defence going forward, you say, as part of the integration of the kind of the domestic and foreign mission, one of the things hopefully that Whitehall is hoping for, is that going to be about how the UK sort of defence companies, defence industry can kind of get involved in the EU going forward? Tell us about that. So one of the dividends, if we can call it, the outcomes of the appalling situation of the war in Ukraine has been to show and really reinforce how important that Britain is as a security actor in the European region. And we have a really outstanding defence industry here of primes, SMEs, it's very textured, we've got a lot of brilliant tech companies that are integrating in. So we've got a real jewel in the crown here. And obviously there's some really important companies in Germany, Italy, France and so on. But we've got a really good integrated system. So the fact that it is currently actually punitive for British firms to engage in the kind of EU defence industrial base at the moment is just absurd and totally unsustainable. And this is actually one of those issues, whereas the EU that really needs to move. So at the moment they've got this whole system that's designed to be very punitive towards third parties and where classified as one of these sort of third countries, which as given our very, very important role in Ukraine and how we've proven ourselves to be extremely effective and decisive actors there, that's just unsustainable. And I think a lot of people in other European capitals understand that. So really in the longer term, that's the big piece that needs to be knotted out. And I think there is a feeling that if we can make some serious progress at a bilateral level, particularly with a country like Germany, that that can start to pave the way for us to have some of those conversations in the EU level. It's not going to necessarily one lead to the other straighter way, but it does move the ship in the right direction. It's also true that Germany is a country that's been through this extraordinary shift, the Zaitenwänder. It's trying to develop a national security culture, which it hasn't had for some time for obvious historical reasons. And now we're in a very different landscape. And Germany is an incredibly important economy and manufacturer and defense agent. So there's a lot of mutual benefits for us working more closely with Germany. I think we've got a lot to teach them. And I think they've also got a lot to teach us in terms of modernization of the military and things like that. So all in all, I think it's a win win for us to get closer here. And hopefully that also encourages Brussels to move and open up a bit more on the longer-term project of EU cooperation. We'll be hoping as well that his Ted Artec with Mr Macron goes equally well once it did do with the olive shells today. Thank you very much, Severe. Thank you, Katie. And thank you for listening to Coffee Hour Shots. [Music]