Opinion
Starmer must do more than reverse the Tories’ cruelties. He should lead a global rethink on refugees
Enver Solomon
Fri, 15 September 2023
Photograph: Stefan Rousseau/PA
There are moments in a political cycle that become defining on the back of issues dominating the headlines. Yesterday, having been reticent to speak out boldly on asylum, Keir Starmer drew a clear dividing line between his party and the government, making clear its proposed approach to people crossing the Channel in small boats.
He articulated his plans to treat people smugglers like terrorists and powerfully criticised the government, telling the Times that draconian government plans to expel anyone seeking safety on our shores to a so-called safe third country to have their asylum claim processed is “inhumane”. Under Labour, the right to asylum would be restored, he said, stating very clearly: “We have to process the claims.”
In a comment piece in the Sun, Starmer went one step further. “We won’t allow those fleeing war zones or persecution to be made scapegoats for government failure,” he wrote.
The comments were in stark contrast to the prime minister’s stance: Rishi Sunak has made stopping the boats a personal crusade and has gone further than any previous British prime minister by banning the right to asylum for those entering the UK “illegally”. The new Illegal Migration Act says that any man, woman or child seeking safety but entering in this way will be treated like human cargo and expelled to Rwanda, the government’s chosen destination. But following the appeal court’s ruling that the African state isn’t a safe place to send people seeking asylum, it’s now up to the supreme court to determine later this year if this can actually happen.
Meanwhile, Labour is emphasising its plans to rapidly clear the current backlog of more than 175,000 people and all additional backlogs they might inherit, as well as processing all future claims in a timely and efficient manner. As the UN refugee agency has advised, that means early triage to determine claims that are either manifestly well-founded or unfounded. And in a more eye-catching proposal, Labour says it will create new “Nightingale asylum courts” to expedite legal challenges.
‘Rishi Sunak has made stopping the boats a personal crusade.’ Sunak on board the Border Force cutter HMC Seeker off the coast of Dover, 5 June 2023.
The Observer view on Labour’s plans to scrap our cruel, unworkable asylum policy
Observer editorial
Sat, 16 September 2023
In recent months, the man who looks increasingly likely to be Britain’s next prime minister has been treading a cautious line. Keir Starmer has made clear that under his leadership a first-term Labour government would stick to tough fiscal rules, and has ruled out making any unfunded spending commitments in the run-up to the next election. That has fuelled criticism from some on the left of his party, who argue that this has limited the extent to which he has been able to differentiate a possible future Labour government from the present Conservative one.
But last week Starmer drew a sharp dividing line between the government and Labour on asylum policy. This government has effectively destroyed the tenets of a workable asylum policy. It has allowed huge delays to develop in processing asylum claims: earlier this year, 83% of claims made in 2018 had not been processed five years later. It has removed the right of anyone arriving in the UK through irregular means to apply for asylum and introduced measures to detain them until they can be deported to another safe country for their claim to be processed. This not only potentially breaks international law, it is impractical, as it will create a growing underclass of tens and eventually hundreds of thousands of asylum seekers – the vast majority of whom would qualify for refugee status – whom the government has pledged to detain at a probable cost of billions to the taxpayer while it tries to strike a deportation deal with a safe third country (Rwanda, the only country that has reached an agreement with the UK, has been ruled unsafe by the British courts).
Starmer has outlined a very different approach. He has said that a Labour government would be even tougher on criminal smuggling gangs, extending the use of the serious crime prevention orders already used to target terrorists and drug traffickers in order to restrict the movement and freeze assets of people smugglers. It remains to be seen how effective this would be; this sort of people smuggling is notoriously difficult to disrupt.
Labour will invest in 1,000 extra case workers and a returns unit of 1,000 staff to process asylum claims quickly
The real difference is that Labour would scrap the government’s unworkable and cruel detention and deportation policies, restoring the right of people to claim asylum in the UK established in the 1951 refugee convention. Instead, Labour will invest in 1,000 extra case workers and a returns unit of 1,000 staff to process claims much more quickly and deport those whose claims are rejected. That is a far better approach.
Starmer will also try to negotiate an agreement with the EU in which the UK would accept a quota of refugees in exchange for being able to return those who cross the Channel in small boats. The government has attacked Labour for this pragmatic stance, although it has previously unsuccessfully tried to negotiate just such a deal. This is perhaps the part of Labour’s plan least likely to succeed; pan-European cooperation has never worked well in the bloc and has broken down further in recent years. But it is the right approach: irregular migration will be a growing global phenomenon, driven by political instability, economic poverty and the climate crisis. Countries such as Italy and Greece cannot be left to cope unilaterally; the problem requires a coordinated response from Europe, and the UK should be part of that.
So Labour has carved out a different and distinctive approach from the government, which is pursuing an unworkable policy in the hope of fooling voters into thinking it has the solution. This commonsense, humane pragmatism from Labour makes for a refreshing change from the populist promises from Conservative politicians pretending there are easy answers to complex problems.
Starmer must do more than reverse the Tories’ cruelties. He should lead a global rethink on refugees
Enver Solomon
Fri, 15 September 2023
Photograph: Stefan Rousseau/PA
There are moments in a political cycle that become defining on the back of issues dominating the headlines. Yesterday, having been reticent to speak out boldly on asylum, Keir Starmer drew a clear dividing line between his party and the government, making clear its proposed approach to people crossing the Channel in small boats.
He articulated his plans to treat people smugglers like terrorists and powerfully criticised the government, telling the Times that draconian government plans to expel anyone seeking safety on our shores to a so-called safe third country to have their asylum claim processed is “inhumane”. Under Labour, the right to asylum would be restored, he said, stating very clearly: “We have to process the claims.”
In a comment piece in the Sun, Starmer went one step further. “We won’t allow those fleeing war zones or persecution to be made scapegoats for government failure,” he wrote.
The comments were in stark contrast to the prime minister’s stance: Rishi Sunak has made stopping the boats a personal crusade and has gone further than any previous British prime minister by banning the right to asylum for those entering the UK “illegally”. The new Illegal Migration Act says that any man, woman or child seeking safety but entering in this way will be treated like human cargo and expelled to Rwanda, the government’s chosen destination. But following the appeal court’s ruling that the African state isn’t a safe place to send people seeking asylum, it’s now up to the supreme court to determine later this year if this can actually happen.
Meanwhile, Labour is emphasising its plans to rapidly clear the current backlog of more than 175,000 people and all additional backlogs they might inherit, as well as processing all future claims in a timely and efficient manner. As the UN refugee agency has advised, that means early triage to determine claims that are either manifestly well-founded or unfounded. And in a more eye-catching proposal, Labour says it will create new “Nightingale asylum courts” to expedite legal challenges.
‘Rishi Sunak has made stopping the boats a personal crusade.’ Sunak on board the Border Force cutter HMC Seeker off the coast of Dover, 5 June 2023.
Photograph: Yui Mok/AFP/Getty Images
Mindful of the government’s record on struggling to return those who have not been granted asylum, Labour is also setting out investment in a new returns unit to “triage and fast-track removals”. It clearly wants to send a message to the electorate: that Labour will be tough on those who it says have no right to be in the UK, having had their claim refused.
What matters now is how these plans are implemented. A critical gap that undermines the rights of those in the asylum system today is the lack of access to legal advice and representation. Ensuring that any person is able to have the legal support they need and that they are entitled to present their case is about due process and fairness. This must not be compromised.
Equally, how people are returned – and ensuring it happens with humanity and dignity – matters. A voluntary returns programme that builds trust with people so they engage willingly in leaving the country is far more effective than relying on enforcement.
A deal with the EU also needs to be part of the solution to Channel crossings, as Labour has proposed. But just as important is expanding safe routes, such as mechanisms that allow family members to join their close relatives in the UK.
One of the biggest challenges a new Labour home secretary would face is bringing far more compassion to the lived experience of refugees. Hidden away from the media headlines is the reality of how cruelty has become normalised in the system.
We know from our work at the Refugee Council that accommodation is overcrowded and unsafe. Communicable diseases such as scabies are left untreated. Self-harm, suicidal thoughts, anxiety and depression due to being unsupported in a state of limbo are not uncommon. And homelessness is fast becoming the norm for newly recognised refugees.
Mild-mannered local leaders now openly name this cruelty. The deputy mayor of London for housing and residential development, Tom Copley, recently told the London Assembly that changes to safety standards in multi-occupancy accommodation for refugees was blatantly “putting lives at risk”.
Buried in judicial review judgments are further shocking examples. A recent judgment highlighted how an article on shaving from Gillette was used to wrongly attest that a teenage unaccompanied child from Afghanistan was an adult. Not surprisingly, the judge was scathing about how the assessment was carried out.
If there is to be genuine change, an incoming Labour government must implement the key lesson of the review into the Windrush scandal – that the Home Office always sees the actual face behind the case when dealing with children and adults going through the immigration system.
Critically, Labour must not overlook the real opportunity to champion a different global approach to refugees, rooted in the party’s values. Starmer could choose to lead the world in taking a multilateral stance that emphasises the importance of a shared humanity that underpins the refugee convention – and moves away from the pull-up-the-drawbridge enforcement response that currently prevails. It will require looking at the causes behind global instability and conflict, as well as how the world responds to those who flee for safety.
This is by no means easy or politically very attractive. But great leaders don’t shy away from addressing the major issues of our time, or taking them on with a deep commitment to the values they hold. The Labour leader shouldn’t hesitate to grasp this opportunity.
Enver Solomon is chief executive of the Refugee Council
Mindful of the government’s record on struggling to return those who have not been granted asylum, Labour is also setting out investment in a new returns unit to “triage and fast-track removals”. It clearly wants to send a message to the electorate: that Labour will be tough on those who it says have no right to be in the UK, having had their claim refused.
What matters now is how these plans are implemented. A critical gap that undermines the rights of those in the asylum system today is the lack of access to legal advice and representation. Ensuring that any person is able to have the legal support they need and that they are entitled to present their case is about due process and fairness. This must not be compromised.
Equally, how people are returned – and ensuring it happens with humanity and dignity – matters. A voluntary returns programme that builds trust with people so they engage willingly in leaving the country is far more effective than relying on enforcement.
A deal with the EU also needs to be part of the solution to Channel crossings, as Labour has proposed. But just as important is expanding safe routes, such as mechanisms that allow family members to join their close relatives in the UK.
One of the biggest challenges a new Labour home secretary would face is bringing far more compassion to the lived experience of refugees. Hidden away from the media headlines is the reality of how cruelty has become normalised in the system.
We know from our work at the Refugee Council that accommodation is overcrowded and unsafe. Communicable diseases such as scabies are left untreated. Self-harm, suicidal thoughts, anxiety and depression due to being unsupported in a state of limbo are not uncommon. And homelessness is fast becoming the norm for newly recognised refugees.
Mild-mannered local leaders now openly name this cruelty. The deputy mayor of London for housing and residential development, Tom Copley, recently told the London Assembly that changes to safety standards in multi-occupancy accommodation for refugees was blatantly “putting lives at risk”.
Buried in judicial review judgments are further shocking examples. A recent judgment highlighted how an article on shaving from Gillette was used to wrongly attest that a teenage unaccompanied child from Afghanistan was an adult. Not surprisingly, the judge was scathing about how the assessment was carried out.
If there is to be genuine change, an incoming Labour government must implement the key lesson of the review into the Windrush scandal – that the Home Office always sees the actual face behind the case when dealing with children and adults going through the immigration system.
Critically, Labour must not overlook the real opportunity to champion a different global approach to refugees, rooted in the party’s values. Starmer could choose to lead the world in taking a multilateral stance that emphasises the importance of a shared humanity that underpins the refugee convention – and moves away from the pull-up-the-drawbridge enforcement response that currently prevails. It will require looking at the causes behind global instability and conflict, as well as how the world responds to those who flee for safety.
This is by no means easy or politically very attractive. But great leaders don’t shy away from addressing the major issues of our time, or taking them on with a deep commitment to the values they hold. The Labour leader shouldn’t hesitate to grasp this opportunity.
Enver Solomon is chief executive of the Refugee Council
The Observer view on Labour’s plans to scrap our cruel, unworkable asylum policy
Observer editorial
Sat, 16 September 2023
In recent months, the man who looks increasingly likely to be Britain’s next prime minister has been treading a cautious line. Keir Starmer has made clear that under his leadership a first-term Labour government would stick to tough fiscal rules, and has ruled out making any unfunded spending commitments in the run-up to the next election. That has fuelled criticism from some on the left of his party, who argue that this has limited the extent to which he has been able to differentiate a possible future Labour government from the present Conservative one.
But last week Starmer drew a sharp dividing line between the government and Labour on asylum policy. This government has effectively destroyed the tenets of a workable asylum policy. It has allowed huge delays to develop in processing asylum claims: earlier this year, 83% of claims made in 2018 had not been processed five years later. It has removed the right of anyone arriving in the UK through irregular means to apply for asylum and introduced measures to detain them until they can be deported to another safe country for their claim to be processed. This not only potentially breaks international law, it is impractical, as it will create a growing underclass of tens and eventually hundreds of thousands of asylum seekers – the vast majority of whom would qualify for refugee status – whom the government has pledged to detain at a probable cost of billions to the taxpayer while it tries to strike a deportation deal with a safe third country (Rwanda, the only country that has reached an agreement with the UK, has been ruled unsafe by the British courts).
Starmer has outlined a very different approach. He has said that a Labour government would be even tougher on criminal smuggling gangs, extending the use of the serious crime prevention orders already used to target terrorists and drug traffickers in order to restrict the movement and freeze assets of people smugglers. It remains to be seen how effective this would be; this sort of people smuggling is notoriously difficult to disrupt.
Labour will invest in 1,000 extra case workers and a returns unit of 1,000 staff to process asylum claims quickly
The real difference is that Labour would scrap the government’s unworkable and cruel detention and deportation policies, restoring the right of people to claim asylum in the UK established in the 1951 refugee convention. Instead, Labour will invest in 1,000 extra case workers and a returns unit of 1,000 staff to process claims much more quickly and deport those whose claims are rejected. That is a far better approach.
Starmer will also try to negotiate an agreement with the EU in which the UK would accept a quota of refugees in exchange for being able to return those who cross the Channel in small boats. The government has attacked Labour for this pragmatic stance, although it has previously unsuccessfully tried to negotiate just such a deal. This is perhaps the part of Labour’s plan least likely to succeed; pan-European cooperation has never worked well in the bloc and has broken down further in recent years. But it is the right approach: irregular migration will be a growing global phenomenon, driven by political instability, economic poverty and the climate crisis. Countries such as Italy and Greece cannot be left to cope unilaterally; the problem requires a coordinated response from Europe, and the UK should be part of that.
So Labour has carved out a different and distinctive approach from the government, which is pursuing an unworkable policy in the hope of fooling voters into thinking it has the solution. This commonsense, humane pragmatism from Labour makes for a refreshing change from the populist promises from Conservative politicians pretending there are easy answers to complex problems.
Before Brexit there was no small boats crisis: more proof that leaving the EU made everything worse
Jonathan Freedland
THE OBSEERVER
Fri, 15 September 2023
Keir Starmer leaving Europol in The Hague, following a meeting to discuss how Labour would tackle Channel crossings.
Fri, 15 September 2023
Keir Starmer leaving Europol in The Hague, following a meeting to discuss how Labour would tackle Channel crossings.
Photograph: Stefan Rousseau/PA
It was only an aside. Keir Starmer wasn’t planning to talk about Brexit, but a subject almost as perilous for his party: migration. Still, Good Morning Britain wanted to know if his plan to strike a deal with the European Union in order to stop the small boats crossing the Channel meant he was weakening his stance on EU withdrawal. “There’s no case for going back to the EU,” he said, “no case for going into the single market or customs union, and no freedom of movement.”
Those words were hardly a shock. Starmer has said similar things before, though sometimes adding the gentle qualification that he could see “no political case” for rejoining the EU, a formulation that hints that while restored membership might be desirable, it’s not feasible. The balder declaration he deployed on Thursday insists that there’s not even an argument to be made in principle for British re-entry.
The calculation behind the remark is clear enough. It’s the same logic that propelled Starmer to wrap his new migration policy in muscular language and to launch it in the Sun, in an article that used the word “tough” four times in two sentences. He needs to win back those former Labour supporters in so-called red wall seats who voted for Brexit on the promise that, outside the EU, Britain could “take back control” of its borders. He needs to appear tough on both Brexit and immigration – the two go together.
Even so, the comment was striking, in part because of the context in which the Labour leader was making it. For Starmer was saying there was no point reversing Brexit, just as he was proposing a solution to a problem caused or aggravated by Brexit and its aftermath.
Related: Starmer calls Tory claim UK would accept 100,000 EU migrants per year under Labour ‘embarrassing nonsense’– as it happened
The connection is spelled out in a report on the small boat phenomenon by Prof Thom Brooks of Durham University, published in February. Can you guess what it concluded was “the primary factor behind the current problem”? The government’s post-Brexit deal, and specifically its failure to reach a “returns agreement with the EU”, whereby unauthorised migrants to the UK could be returned to the first safe EU country they had entered.
Before Brexit, there was just such an arrangement. But it expired once Britain left – and the government put nothing in its place. People traffickers spotted the opportunity almost immediately, offering to take people to a country, Britain, from where they could no longer be sent back. Staggeringly, Brooks found “no records of any individuals travelling by small boat to claim asylum in 2017 or before” – not one case. But as “the UK prepared to leave its returns agreement, small boat journeys started”. And the people making those journeys grew in number, from the low hundreds in 2018 to tens of thousands in 2023.
No wonder those Brexit-backers who voted to leave the EU because they did not want Britain to be a refuge for desperate people seeking asylum are disappointed: when Britain was in the EU, covered by a returns deal, there was no opening for the traffickers to exploit. Now there is.
This is what Starmer is trying to fix, striking a new bargain with the EU that would destroy the trafficking gangs’ business model. In return, Britain would take its share of people approved for asylum in the EU. Those on the right always so keen to insist they welcome “genuine” refugees and loathe only the criminal gangs profiting from their misfortune should be delighted by Starmer’s proposal. Naturally, they have condemned it. In characteristically dehumanising language, the home secretary, Suella Braverman, said it would make the UK a “dumping ground” for Europe’s migrants.
The point, though, is that Starmer’s plan would not be needed, had we stuck with the pre-Brexit setup. What he proposes is a solution that attempts to get us closer to what we had – without admitting that we’ve lost anything.
It’s becoming a habit, with the Conservatives the most frequent offender. In one area after another, the government has sought to patch up holes left by Brexit. Last week, UK scientists celebrated rejoining the Horizon Europe research programme. It was hailed as a big breakthrough – even though it simply restores something we once took for granted.
Last month, the government announced it was indefinitely delaying – scrapping – its once-promised plan to introduce a UK-only product safety mark, choosing instead to retain the familiar CE mark of the EU. It was bowing to pressure from manufacturers – and to reality. Why ask industry to spend a fortune jumping through hoops to get a mark that only brings access to the UK market? Obviously it’s better to stick with the CE mark we already had.
It’s a similar picture with checks on imports of EU food, another supposed bonus of Brexit that has been serially “delayed” in order to save costs. Whether it’s delays or side deals, the purpose is the same: to devise workarounds that address the damage caused by Brexit by seeking to remove the Brexit element, quietly undoing the bit where we move away from the EU.
Hilariously, the government sometimes spins these moves as exercises of our newly won sovereignty, in which we choose, as an independent nation, to be closer to the continent we left behind. As Prof Chris Grey, sage writer on these matters, put it to me, capturing the paradox: “Brexit works best when it’s not implemented.”
All the same, there will be some who look at these patch-and-mend solutions and think, well, they might be perverse, but if they get the job done, why would we ever need to rejoin the EU? The answer is that all these fixes are worse than what we had before. To be in Horizon without freedom of movement is to be denied the ability to mobilise project teams across Europe. Delayed import controls might allow EU food to come in smoothly, but now the UK is shut out of the EU databases that track animal health, leaving the country vulnerable to disease. UK manufacturers can still use the CE mark, but now they have to pay an EU “notified body” to formally prove they’re worthy of it – and all without a UK seat at the table where the big decisions on regulations affecting products are taken. As Grey says, “being outside the EU means less, not more, control”.
So yes, we can stick on a patch here or bolt on a bit of pipework there, hoping to make it look like the machine we had before Brexit – but it will never run quite as smoothly. The lunacy of Brexit is we won a right not worth having – the right to diverge from our nearest neighbours in ways that make it harder and costlier for us to trade with, or even just to live alongside, them.
Starmer is a good lawyer, and there was reasoning behind his words this week. But “no case” to rejoin the EU? On the contrary: the case only gets stronger.
Those words were hardly a shock. Starmer has said similar things before, though sometimes adding the gentle qualification that he could see “no political case” for rejoining the EU, a formulation that hints that while restored membership might be desirable, it’s not feasible. The balder declaration he deployed on Thursday insists that there’s not even an argument to be made in principle for British re-entry.
The calculation behind the remark is clear enough. It’s the same logic that propelled Starmer to wrap his new migration policy in muscular language and to launch it in the Sun, in an article that used the word “tough” four times in two sentences. He needs to win back those former Labour supporters in so-called red wall seats who voted for Brexit on the promise that, outside the EU, Britain could “take back control” of its borders. He needs to appear tough on both Brexit and immigration – the two go together.
Even so, the comment was striking, in part because of the context in which the Labour leader was making it. For Starmer was saying there was no point reversing Brexit, just as he was proposing a solution to a problem caused or aggravated by Brexit and its aftermath.
Related: Starmer calls Tory claim UK would accept 100,000 EU migrants per year under Labour ‘embarrassing nonsense’– as it happened
The connection is spelled out in a report on the small boat phenomenon by Prof Thom Brooks of Durham University, published in February. Can you guess what it concluded was “the primary factor behind the current problem”? The government’s post-Brexit deal, and specifically its failure to reach a “returns agreement with the EU”, whereby unauthorised migrants to the UK could be returned to the first safe EU country they had entered.
Before Brexit, there was just such an arrangement. But it expired once Britain left – and the government put nothing in its place. People traffickers spotted the opportunity almost immediately, offering to take people to a country, Britain, from where they could no longer be sent back. Staggeringly, Brooks found “no records of any individuals travelling by small boat to claim asylum in 2017 or before” – not one case. But as “the UK prepared to leave its returns agreement, small boat journeys started”. And the people making those journeys grew in number, from the low hundreds in 2018 to tens of thousands in 2023.
No wonder those Brexit-backers who voted to leave the EU because they did not want Britain to be a refuge for desperate people seeking asylum are disappointed: when Britain was in the EU, covered by a returns deal, there was no opening for the traffickers to exploit. Now there is.
This is what Starmer is trying to fix, striking a new bargain with the EU that would destroy the trafficking gangs’ business model. In return, Britain would take its share of people approved for asylum in the EU. Those on the right always so keen to insist they welcome “genuine” refugees and loathe only the criminal gangs profiting from their misfortune should be delighted by Starmer’s proposal. Naturally, they have condemned it. In characteristically dehumanising language, the home secretary, Suella Braverman, said it would make the UK a “dumping ground” for Europe’s migrants.
The point, though, is that Starmer’s plan would not be needed, had we stuck with the pre-Brexit setup. What he proposes is a solution that attempts to get us closer to what we had – without admitting that we’ve lost anything.
It’s becoming a habit, with the Conservatives the most frequent offender. In one area after another, the government has sought to patch up holes left by Brexit. Last week, UK scientists celebrated rejoining the Horizon Europe research programme. It was hailed as a big breakthrough – even though it simply restores something we once took for granted.
Last month, the government announced it was indefinitely delaying – scrapping – its once-promised plan to introduce a UK-only product safety mark, choosing instead to retain the familiar CE mark of the EU. It was bowing to pressure from manufacturers – and to reality. Why ask industry to spend a fortune jumping through hoops to get a mark that only brings access to the UK market? Obviously it’s better to stick with the CE mark we already had.
It’s a similar picture with checks on imports of EU food, another supposed bonus of Brexit that has been serially “delayed” in order to save costs. Whether it’s delays or side deals, the purpose is the same: to devise workarounds that address the damage caused by Brexit by seeking to remove the Brexit element, quietly undoing the bit where we move away from the EU.
Hilariously, the government sometimes spins these moves as exercises of our newly won sovereignty, in which we choose, as an independent nation, to be closer to the continent we left behind. As Prof Chris Grey, sage writer on these matters, put it to me, capturing the paradox: “Brexit works best when it’s not implemented.”
All the same, there will be some who look at these patch-and-mend solutions and think, well, they might be perverse, but if they get the job done, why would we ever need to rejoin the EU? The answer is that all these fixes are worse than what we had before. To be in Horizon without freedom of movement is to be denied the ability to mobilise project teams across Europe. Delayed import controls might allow EU food to come in smoothly, but now the UK is shut out of the EU databases that track animal health, leaving the country vulnerable to disease. UK manufacturers can still use the CE mark, but now they have to pay an EU “notified body” to formally prove they’re worthy of it – and all without a UK seat at the table where the big decisions on regulations affecting products are taken. As Grey says, “being outside the EU means less, not more, control”.
So yes, we can stick on a patch here or bolt on a bit of pipework there, hoping to make it look like the machine we had before Brexit – but it will never run quite as smoothly. The lunacy of Brexit is we won a right not worth having – the right to diverge from our nearest neighbours in ways that make it harder and costlier for us to trade with, or even just to live alongside, them.
Starmer is a good lawyer, and there was reasoning behind his words this week. But “no case” to rejoin the EU? On the contrary: the case only gets stronger.
Labour wants new EU links in a reset of British foreign policy
Toby Helm, Political Editor
Sat, 16 September 2023
Photograph: Minas Panagiotakis/Getty Images
The shadow foreign secretary, David Lammy, has proposed regular meetings between UK and European Union ministers, as part of a major reset of British foreign policy under a Labour government.
Lammy, who was attending a gathering of centre-left leaders in Montreal, Canada, with the Labour leader Keir Starmer, told the Observer it was high time the UK took up its place again, after Brexit, as a lead player in world affairs. “A UK that is isolated and missing is felt across the world. It is definitely the case that the international community want Britain back,” he said.
“There have always been two visions of Britain. Great Britain, outward looking, internationalist, connected. And Little England, which is unfortunately what is being pursued by Rishi Sunak.”
Last night, as Starmer used a speech at the meeting hosted by the Canadian prime minister Justin Trudeau to say Labour would rebuild “the smouldering cinders of the bridges the Tories have burnt” in relations with other countries, Lammy said closer links with the EU were the number one goal.
“We think it is bizarre that the UK does not currently under this government have structured dialogue with the European Union in a constructive way. We want to approach the review of our trade arrangements in a very constructive manner, and we want to build on the partnership that we have seen on Ukraine. That is why we are proposing a new [UK/EU] security pact.”
Lammy stressed that a Labour government would not attempt to take Britain back into the EU single market or customs union but added that “we do think there is a lot we can do in rebuilding our relationships if we are in power. We don’t currently meet with the European Union to discuss mutual issues of concern, whether on a biannual basis or on a quarterly basis. At the moment there is nothing. It is all ad hoc. We have got to get back to structured dialogue. What it means [without it] is that we are not in the room.”
The EU currently has regular bilateral summits with other countries, including the US, China, Canada, Australia and Japan. It is understood that initial talks about creating regular UK/EU meetings have taken place, with Brussels reacting positively
The comments by both Starmer and Lammy reflect a greater confidence at the top of the party to talk about relations between the UK and the EU than has been the case under Starmer’s leadership to date. Until now, there has been a fear that pro-Brexit Labour voters and the right-wing media would accuse Starmer of wanting to overturn the result of the 2016 referendum.
The shift of gear by Starmer and raising of his profile on the international stage has echoes of the efforts made by New Labour before it came to power in 1997 to court both Washington and the EU, as it sought to act as bridge between them. Tony Blair famously courted the Democrats, and in April 1996, more than a year before his first general election victory, was invited by President Bill Clinton to take part in a joint press conference at the White House.
Lammy and the shadow chancellor, Rachel Reeves, will join Starmer on Tuesday on a visit to Paris where the Labour leader will hold talks with Emmanuel Macron, including about his plans to tackle the problem of small boats crossing the channel.
Starmer indicated last week during a visit to Europol in The Hague that he could strike a deal with Brussels that would involve taking a quota of asylum seekers who arrive in the EU in exchange for the ability to return people who cross the Channel.
Then Lammy will travel to Washington with the shadow defence secretary, John Healey, later next week for meetings with US Democrat and Republican politicians and officials. Lammy said they would be stressing the UK’s solidarity with Ukraine amid signs of waning public support in the US for the war against Russia.
Lammy said it was “unbelievable” that Sunak had decided to become the first British prime minister in a decade not to attend the UN general assembly in New York this week. The shadow international development secretary, Lisa Nandy, will be representing the Labour party.
In his speech in Montreal last night, Starmer challenged Sunak to face down those Conservative MPs who want Britain to pull out of the European convention on human rights, saying Sunak’s “equivocation” was damaging Britain’s global influence and preventing the country from leading on the world stage.
“Their drum beat of threats to pull out of the ECHR is nothing more than a desperate attempt by a failing government to whip up division in order to cling to power, with the consequences for Britain’s security and prosperity an afterthought,” he said.
Lammy said Sunak had been isolated at the G20 last weekend when the United States, the EU and India joined in signing an agreement on an India-Middle East economic corridor at the G20, with the UK prime minister not present.
Toby Helm, Political Editor
Sat, 16 September 2023
Photograph: Minas Panagiotakis/Getty Images
The shadow foreign secretary, David Lammy, has proposed regular meetings between UK and European Union ministers, as part of a major reset of British foreign policy under a Labour government.
Lammy, who was attending a gathering of centre-left leaders in Montreal, Canada, with the Labour leader Keir Starmer, told the Observer it was high time the UK took up its place again, after Brexit, as a lead player in world affairs. “A UK that is isolated and missing is felt across the world. It is definitely the case that the international community want Britain back,” he said.
“There have always been two visions of Britain. Great Britain, outward looking, internationalist, connected. And Little England, which is unfortunately what is being pursued by Rishi Sunak.”
Last night, as Starmer used a speech at the meeting hosted by the Canadian prime minister Justin Trudeau to say Labour would rebuild “the smouldering cinders of the bridges the Tories have burnt” in relations with other countries, Lammy said closer links with the EU were the number one goal.
“We think it is bizarre that the UK does not currently under this government have structured dialogue with the European Union in a constructive way. We want to approach the review of our trade arrangements in a very constructive manner, and we want to build on the partnership that we have seen on Ukraine. That is why we are proposing a new [UK/EU] security pact.”
Lammy stressed that a Labour government would not attempt to take Britain back into the EU single market or customs union but added that “we do think there is a lot we can do in rebuilding our relationships if we are in power. We don’t currently meet with the European Union to discuss mutual issues of concern, whether on a biannual basis or on a quarterly basis. At the moment there is nothing. It is all ad hoc. We have got to get back to structured dialogue. What it means [without it] is that we are not in the room.”
The EU currently has regular bilateral summits with other countries, including the US, China, Canada, Australia and Japan. It is understood that initial talks about creating regular UK/EU meetings have taken place, with Brussels reacting positively
The comments by both Starmer and Lammy reflect a greater confidence at the top of the party to talk about relations between the UK and the EU than has been the case under Starmer’s leadership to date. Until now, there has been a fear that pro-Brexit Labour voters and the right-wing media would accuse Starmer of wanting to overturn the result of the 2016 referendum.
The shift of gear by Starmer and raising of his profile on the international stage has echoes of the efforts made by New Labour before it came to power in 1997 to court both Washington and the EU, as it sought to act as bridge between them. Tony Blair famously courted the Democrats, and in April 1996, more than a year before his first general election victory, was invited by President Bill Clinton to take part in a joint press conference at the White House.
Lammy and the shadow chancellor, Rachel Reeves, will join Starmer on Tuesday on a visit to Paris where the Labour leader will hold talks with Emmanuel Macron, including about his plans to tackle the problem of small boats crossing the channel.
Starmer indicated last week during a visit to Europol in The Hague that he could strike a deal with Brussels that would involve taking a quota of asylum seekers who arrive in the EU in exchange for the ability to return people who cross the Channel.
Then Lammy will travel to Washington with the shadow defence secretary, John Healey, later next week for meetings with US Democrat and Republican politicians and officials. Lammy said they would be stressing the UK’s solidarity with Ukraine amid signs of waning public support in the US for the war against Russia.
Lammy said it was “unbelievable” that Sunak had decided to become the first British prime minister in a decade not to attend the UN general assembly in New York this week. The shadow international development secretary, Lisa Nandy, will be representing the Labour party.
In his speech in Montreal last night, Starmer challenged Sunak to face down those Conservative MPs who want Britain to pull out of the European convention on human rights, saying Sunak’s “equivocation” was damaging Britain’s global influence and preventing the country from leading on the world stage.
“Their drum beat of threats to pull out of the ECHR is nothing more than a desperate attempt by a failing government to whip up division in order to cling to power, with the consequences for Britain’s security and prosperity an afterthought,” he said.
Lammy said Sunak had been isolated at the G20 last weekend when the United States, the EU and India joined in signing an agreement on an India-Middle East economic corridor at the G20, with the UK prime minister not present.
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