The UK-EU reset deal is not a Brexit surrender

One of Brexit’s most disturbing aspects – and there have been many – has been the complete subjugation of even the most basic levels of common sense to the rantings of the swivel-eyed loons.

Countries around the world have always done deals with each other. Short of complete defeat in war, none of these is an abject surrender. They are based on trade-offs in which each side gets some of what they want through compromise.

Yet such is the vitriol of the Brexiteers that Keir Starmer’s historic “reset” of the disastrous Brexit deal negotiated by Boris Johnson and Lord Frost is viewed by them as a betrayal and an unpatriotic destruction of the UK’s sovereignty. A dwindling band of diehards in Westminster and the media seem unaware that the world has moved on since the referendum – and that their own visions of Brexit have been tested and have comprehensively failed.

And so they scream in protest. “An abject surrender,” said Nigel Farage. “Concession after concession,” said Kemi Badenoch. “Starmer is turning Britain into the EU’s gimp, handing us over to Eurocrat control encased in shiny black leather and with a ball gag,” wrote “Brain of Brexit” Lord Daniel Hannan, sounding like he needed a long lie-down in a dark dungeon. Boris Johnson ranted about “surrenderism” and “vasselage” but had seen some of the same films as Hannan, calling Starmer “the orange ball-chewing manacled gimp of Brussels”. The Mail and Express fumed about a different kind of submission.

Of course, nothing could be further from the truth. In return for allowing some EU fishing boats into UK waters, the government has got a much better deal on UK agricultural and food exports to the continent.

Since the UK’s fishing industry makes up only 0.03% of our economy and has found itself hidebound by the red tape and costs that Brexit imposed on its exports, it was an obvious concession to make. The losses are far outweighed by the gains. But Farage told GB News that this meant “the end of the fishing industry”, even though the fishers will benefit from reduced paperwork and a £360 million “fishing and coastal” growth fund. I don’t remember the last 14 years of Tory government doing that. Doubtless Farage will turn down any of this money for his Clacton constituency.

Aston University calculates that our food exports to the EU will soar by more than 20% as a result of agreeing to a deal on shared standards of food safety and quality. We export £14 billion worth of food and drink to the EU; a 20% boost would increase that to almost £17 billion. Since our food and agriculture standards are virtually identical to those in the EU, this is an almost painless victory.

GB News’s Christopher Hope was the first of the right wing whingers to tell us that having such an agreement with the EU makes us a rule-taker, destroying our sovereignty. Why these people want to die on the hill of letting the UK have worse food standards than our neighbours is beyond me, not least because if you want to export to the EU, you have to meet their standards anyway.

As the deal makes clear, an agreement on veterinary, plant and food standards will “result in the vast majority of movements of animals, animal products, plants, and plant products between Great Britain and the European Union being undertaken without the certificates or controls that are currently required by the rules within the scope of the SPS Agreement for such movements. These same benefits would be extended to the movements between Great Britain and Northern Ireland”. That means we can save all that money the Tories spaffed away on border control sites and unnecessary inspections, lorry parks, red tape and delays and much of the border in the Irish Sea will disappear too.

The UK will have to “dynamically align” its food and agriculture rules and regulations with the EU’s, and pay for the schemes we join. But the EU will consult with us at an early stage on any changes, and to increase exports by £1.8 billion a year, that seems like a small price to pay, although not for the Brexit mob; who will continue to scream blue murder.

As for the rest of Britain’s manufacturing industry, they will be delighted about an agreement on coordinating the UK and the EU’s carbon trading schemes. This was hanging over their heads like Damocles’s sword for years – they faced huge export taxes of £800m a year and red tape because the two schemes, while almost identical, were not compatible. Now they are.

Another economic win for the UK is the continued talks on allowing business people to travel freely across Europe for work and the mutual recognition of professional standards. All of this will, the government says, add £9 billion to the British economy by 2040, a huge boost to growth, although only a small part of the economic costs of Brexit.

But perhaps the most popular measures for ordinary people will be plans to increase the use of e-gates at European airports, ending the dreaded queues which have been suffered by British tourists since Brexit. The farce of repeated and very expensive checks for British pets will end too, with new pet passports instead.

There can be little doubt that Kemi Badenoch and Farage will find that this is all a betrayal too. Many more betrayals like this and we might begin to undo the huge economic damage their Brexit has imposed on our country. The Daily Telegraph carried an “analysis” of this deal titled “This humiliation is only the beginning”. Well, let us hope so – if this is humiliation, Lord Hannan, we cannot get enough of it.

Gallons of Kool-Aid have been drunk in the fantasy land of the Sunlit Uplands, enabling the Brexiteers to criticise obvious and sensible compromises from which their country and their constituents will benefit enormously. Luckily for us, Labour have no such delusions about the mess that Brexit has caused, and are braced for the tsunami of tripe from the usual sources.

Maybe Reform and the Tories want to campaign at the next election on “What do we want? Longer airport queues and more red tape! When do we want them? Now!” Somehow, I doubt it.

Starmer’s deal is far from perfect. Yet it is the first common sense moment of the Brexit years. That in itself that feels monumental after nine years of nonsense, waste and lies.

We might have had an even better deal, but the government has obviously felt itself restrained by the screaming headlines about “surrender” and “Brexit betrayal”. A youth mobility scheme is not happening just yet. But the momentum is obviously in the right direction and talks will continue, the EU having shown some sensible sensitivity to the heavy opposition that even such common sense moves face in the UK.

We might even do the blindingly obvious and rejoin the Erasmus scheme – another huge benefit of EU membership which was thrown out by the idiotic Tory negotiators with the bath water.

The jewel in the crown of this deal is going to be nothing to do with fishing or food exports, youth mobility, carbon trading or airport queues.
Since the war in Ukraine and especially now Nigel Farage’s best mate Donald Trump is back in the White House, Europe has had to look to its own defence. That is why the UK and the EU have signed a new security pact to coordinate and cooperate on defence and security across Europe.

But that is just the start. The EU is planning a €150 billion (£126bn) defence and security fund, and the UK desperately needs to be part of it. Our defence industry is still one of the best and most important in Europe, if we are left outside of this fund, it will be a disaster, not just for our industry but also for our country’s security.

The scheme lets countries borrow from the fund, but only if they spend most of the money in the European Economic Area and agree on joint procurement policies. Without a deal between the UK and the EU, British companies would be very limited in the contracts they could get, and we would be left on the outside looking in.

Without Brexit, we would have been leading this initiative. Now we are hoping that we can be an important third party. If the government succeeds in getting the UK into that scheme

It would be a victory that would overshadow any possible criticism of this reset.

A share of a €150 billion pot for our defence industries, new research, new technology, new factories, new cooperation, and full order books. Good for our security and our economy.

Let’s see Kemi and Nigel come after that “betrayal”.