KEIR Starmer‘s Brexit chief will pledge to lock Britain into closer ties with the EU, despite warnings the plan amounts to a ‘betrayal’.
In a major speech on future relations with Brussels on Wednesday, Nick Thomas-Symonds will claim that closer alignment with EU rules is a ‘necessary step’ to boost economic growth.
The Cabinet Office minister, a close ally of Sir Keir, was appointed last year to oversee Labour‘s ‘reset’ of relations with the EU.
In his speech, he will pledge to go further, including committing to a new ‘food and drink deal’ with Brussels by 2027, which will permanently lock British producers into following EU regulations.
Nigel Farage has vowed to scrap Labour’s reset agreement with Brussels, arguing that it damages Britain’s prospects for striking ambitious trade deals around the world.
The Reform UK leader said the ‘abject surrender’ by Sir Keir had put Britain on a ‘slippery slope’ to rejoining the EU.
Mr Thomas-Symonds will today warn that scrapping the deal would damage businesses hit by post-Brexit red tape.
He will accuse Mr Farage of ‘siding with the promise of more red tape, mountains of paperwork, and a bureaucratic burden’, adding: ‘Nigel Farage’s manifesto at the next election will say in writing he wants to take Britain backwards, cutting at least £9 billion from the economy, bringing with it a risk to jobs and a risk of food prices going up.’
Keir Starmer’s Brexit chief Nick Thomas-Symonds will deliver his speech on Wednesday
Prime Minister Keir Starmer is facing claims of a Brexit ‘betrayal’
European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen
The Department for the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra) will today publish a new assessment suggesting that the reset deal will help some food businesses looking to trade with Europe.
Whitehall sources said the value of Sir Keir’s reset deal could eventually reach £9 billion.
But it also involves signing up to controversial ‘dynamic alignment’ with EU regulations. This means that as well as agreeing to follow current EU rules, British producers will also have to adopt new Brussels regulations in their area in future, even though the UK will have no say in making them.
Critics, including Boris Johnson, have warned the ‘sell out’ deal will make the UK a ‘rule taker’ with no choice but to accept a tide of new regulations from Brussels.
Shadow foreign secretary Dame Priti Patel last night said Labour was ‘dragging us back into Brussels’ arms’.
‘Once again Labour are trying to justify their EU surrender – but the British public simply won’t buy this betrayal,’ she said.
‘Keir Starmer is dragging us back into Brussels’ arms, and looking to once again make this country a rule taker rather than a rule maker, having sold off our fishing communities in the process.
‘The Conservatives will never stand by and let Labour undo the democratic will of this country. We will fight them at every step.’
Mr Thomas-Symonds will today claim that the government’s decision to align with EU rules is an example of ‘sovereignty, exercised in the national interest’.
A Whitehall source said that dynamic alignment as a ‘a necessary step to boost growth, protect business, secure jobs and bring down food prices’.
This year’s reset deal included an agreement in principle to cut red tape on food and farming trade imposed by Brussels following Brexit in return for the UK agreeing to follow EU rules and allow continued access to British fishing waters.
Today’s report by Defra will warn that small food exporters face a ‘competitive disadvantage’ because they have struggled to cope with the new red tape.
Mr Thomas-Symonds will pledge to finalise the new food and drink rules by 2027. But this could involve further concessions on the EU’s demands for a new youth mobility scheme, which critics have branded a return to free movement by the back door.
