Brussels questions whether Starmer really wants a Brexit reset

LONDON — Keir Starmer says he wants to “reset” Britain’s relationship with Europe. But two months into his premiership, the EU is starting to wonder whether he really means it.

EU officials and diplomats have told POLITICO they are increasingly doubtful that — beyond warm rhetoric — the new U.K. prime minister is all that keen on walking back on the Brexit breach with Europe.

Starmer’s swift rejection of EU priorities such as establishing a youth mobility scheme and rejoining the Erasmus exchange program has gone down badly in European capitals and is taking a toll on early optimism about the new British government.

Hopes were high on the continent that the new PM would take a different approach to his Tory predecessors; in terms of rhetoric and mood music, the new U.K. approach has been “relatively positive,” one senior EU official told POLITICO.

“The problem, though, is people are starting to think it’s a bit of a facade because when you move onto specific portfolios — whether that’s youth mobility or Erasmus — the answer is always ‘no.’”

An EU diplomat, also granted anonymity to speak freely, said that the new government’s lack of interest in rejoining the Erasmus scheme in particular “did register in Brussels” and among member states. And it didn’t go down well.

Re-entry into the student exchange program is seen in the EU capital as the kind of low-hanging fruit a pro-European British government would be expected to jump at. Officials said they were “surprised” by the snub, first reported by POLITICO.

“Constructive rhetoric is all very nice but as long as fundamentally nothing changes in the U.K. position, I don’t see how the status quo changes,” the second diplomat said.

Starmer’s strait-jacket

Brussels has always been well aware that Starmer’s red lines — no single market, customs union or free movement — rule out a truly close Norway or Iceland-style relationship with Britain.

But the hope was that within those rather restrictive limits, laid down to insulate Labour from criticism it is defying the 2016 referendum result, the maximum could be achieved. Instead, since entering office, Starmer’s political strait-jacket has seemed to get only tighter.

A casual public statement earlier in 2024 that Labour had “no plans” for a youth mobility scheme evolved into an “extremely negative” take on the policy in meetings behind the scenes, the EU diplomat said.

EU officials were so baffled by senior Labour figures’ negative reaction to the idea — which would see 18-30 year olds given affordable visas to live abroad for up to four years — that they thought there must be “some degree of confusion” over the proposal at the British end.

When pushed in public on the youth mobility scheme Starmer has likened the idea to a return to freedom of movement, which he is against. But aware that the Labour leader is cautious of signing up to anything that could bolster the pro-Brexit, anti-immigration Reform party —which has seen support surge in Labour’s traditional heartlands — European capitals are now revisiting the Commission’s plan in the hope they can hash out something the British PM might agree to.

A U.K. government spokesperson told POLITICO: “We’ve had very positive engagement in our early conversations as we work to reset the relationship with our European friends to strengthen ties, secure a broad-based security pact and tackle barriers to trade.”

What Brussels wants

Indeed, Starmer also has other priorities and manifesto commitments of his own which would bring the U.K. closer to the EU. He wants a veterinary deal to reduce border bureaucracy at the border at Dover, mutual recognition of professional qualifications to help Britain’s vaunted services sector do business abroad, and fewer restrictions on U.K. artists touring the continent.

On the other side of the Channel, though, there are concerns that the prime minister hasn’t clocked that the European Union has priorities of its own. Of these, youth mobility stands out as the biggest “quid pro quo.”

Having toured EU capitals from Berlin to Dublin to get his “reset” message across, it’s probably not the start that Starmer wanted.

Even these visits themselves have raised suspicions in Brussels that London may be trying to find ways to work around the European Commission by going directly to national capitals, a perennial EU concern when dealing with British leaders.

One EU official described the idea that Brussels could be bypassed as “completely inaccurate and legally wrong” and warned that member states would in any case likely have “almost zero” influence given the negotiating mandate has already been set.

Starmer has yet to meet with European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen, who is still busy putting together her new Commission and is unlikely to get it signed off by the European Parliament until December. Plans for the pair of leaders to get together in August or September have been pushed back until later in the autumn or even winter amid a tight timetable in Brussels.

The lack of a meeting isn’t a snub, EU officials insist. “Von der Leyen doesn’t have time to meet anyone at the moment, she’s got to put a college together,” the first official quoted above said, adding that “she would have absolutely nothing to say” until her Commission was in place anyway.

Trouble ahead?

Anand Menon, director of the UK in a Changing Europe think tank, said Brussels should wait until negotiations actually start before passing judgement on what the U.K. will or won’t accept.

“The U.K. has no one to negotiate with until a new Commission is in place,” he told POLITICO. “Not least as we’re not a priority for the EU.”

Menon said that officials “probably need to zip it a bit” and “maybe get a move on getting an executive in place” that the U.K. government can talk to.

In public, the mood music around the reset is still positive, with U.K. ministers gearing up for more trips to the continent in the coming months. But there could be trouble ahead “if these narratives are not turned into actions when we move from rhetoric to business,” the senior EU official warned.

If that doesn’t happen, Starmer’s reset could start to look more like a replay of the last eight years.