Are we entering the post-Brexit era?
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As he unveiled his much-touted "reset" deal with the EU, Keir Starmer said it is time to move on from "political fights" and "stale old debates" about Brexit.
Nearly 10 years on from the Brexit referendum, and more than five since the UK formally left the EU, the new agreement strengthens ties over areas including fishing, trade, defence and energy.
Starmer's appeal to "common sense" and "practical solutions" may strike a chord with the public, but his "big bet" is that "nobody really cares" about Brexit any more, said the BBC's chief political correspondent Henry Zeffman.
"This was the day the Brexit dream died," said the Daily Mail in an editorial, while The Express called it "a betrayal dressed up as a policy".
Staunch Brexiteers will "blast" Starmer "on fisheries, rule taking and youth migration", while diehard Remainers "will argue it's a meek deal that hasn't gone far enough to repair the economic scars of Brexit", said Politico. But "this fight down the middle is one the prime minister's quite happy to pick", while the Conservatives and Reform UK, both of whom have described the deal as a "surrender", "risk sounding like broken records on Brexit".
With this deal – coming in the same month that trade agreements were announced with the US and India – Starmer has managed the "impossible", said The Independent: "to have his cake and eat it".
When Labour under Starmer "pivoted" in 2020, from campaigning for a second referendum to a policy of "make Brexit work", "nobody really took it seriously". But he has "succeeded where others failed and managed to break the Brexit conundrum".
Despite the "upbeat rhetoric", some of the "most difficult issues to resolve have been pushed back into future negotiations" – including the shape of a youth mobility scheme, said The Times. The deal also "leaves a number of difficult questions unanswered", such as how much Britain will have to pay to access the new EU defence fund and to align with the EU food standards and energy trading system.
But the government hopes that voters will warm to the tangible effects of a "reset" in relations with the EU, including cheaper food and energy, and a reduction of red tape for small businesses.
What will "prove revealing over the coming days, weeks, and months" is how much Reform and the Conservatives decide to campaign around the idea of a Brexit "betrayal", said the BBC's Zeffman.
If opposition to the deal becomes a "significant part of these parties' platforms, it will tell us that they believe there is in fact plenty of controversy yet in the decades-long debate over the UK's relationship with the EU".
If that's right, it could thrust questions about Brexit "right back to the centre of political life.
"But if Sir Keir is right that the bulk of the public simply wants as little friction with the EU as possible, then he could prove to be our first truly post-Brexit prime minister."
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