As the UK is denied access to crime databases... when will Starmer, the EU's most ardent suitor, wake up to its blinkered intransigence and desire to punish Britain?

Daily Mail​

06-05-2025

Will the scales ever fall from Sir Keir Starmer's eyes? Might our profoundly Europhile Prime Minister one day wake up to the reality that the European Union is a doctrinaire, protectionist and bureaucratic organisation with a skewed sense of priorities?
May 19 is supposed to be a red letter day when EU and British leaders will gather in London to agree the 'reset' in relations on which Sir Keir has set his heart. But negotiations haven't been going as swimmingly as he had hoped.
The latest setback is the EU's rejection of British access to crime and illegal migration databases. According to the Times, which has spoken to several Whitehall sources, Brussels is refusing to countenance any sharing of such information.
EU negotiators reportedly made clear last week that there could be no access to the Schengen Information System or to the EU fingerprinting scheme, Eurodac, which has a record of all illegal migrants caught trying to enter the European Union.
If the EU were prepared to share its database, the Home Office could find out where an illegal immigrant arriving in Britain had previously applied for asylum and been rejected. Such people could be fast-tracked, and quickly removed.
According to one unidentified senior government negotiator who spoke to the Times, European Commission counterparts have been 'intransigent' and 'dogmatic' during discussions on data. Why should there be any surprise?
The European Commission doesn't say to itself: We live in dangerous times with criminals and illegal immigrants crossing borders in their thousands. It won't reason that the citizens of the EU and the UK would be safer in their beds if information of this sort were freely shared by both sides.
No, the Commission is as rigid in its thinking as a committee of Catholic bishops laying down the law on the finer points of Purgatory in 12th century Europe. Britain is neither part of the EU nor of the Schengen agreement on open borders. Of course it can't be allowed to share Brussels' precious data!
European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen and French President Emmanuel Macron ahead of their meeting at the Elysee in Paris on Monday
Sir Keir Starmer arrives to meet with Ms von der Leyen inside No 10, where an EU flag features
In fact, the Government was somewhat naive in imagining that such a deal might be possible, since even when Britain was an EU member we had only limited access to the database because we weren't signed up to Schengen.
Why should hard-boiled negotiators in Brussels – people who put every jot and tittle of European law above consideration of our collective security – suddenly open their minds to rationality and common sense?
This is only the most recent example of the EU failing to embrace the besotted pro-European Sir Keir Starmer in the fraternal way he dreams of. It demonstrates a kind of institutional pettiness.
In March the European Commission announced that it would borrow up to 150 billion euros to lend to EU governments under a rearmament plan necessitated by the threat from Russia, combined with concerns that Europe can no longer be sure of US protection now that the maverick President Trump is in charge.
'We are living in the most momentous and dangerous of times,' Commission President Ursula von der Leyen declared. 'We are in an era of rearmament. And Europe is ready to massively boost its defence spending.'
Wise words. But almost as soon as Mrs von der Leyen had spoken, President Emmanuel Macron said that the UK should be excluded from a defence and security pact, and British manufacturers barred from bidding for weapon contracts, unless European (and particularly French) vessels were given access to our fishing waters.
Continental Europe is threatened – actually even more so than Britain, as an island. UK companies such as British Aerospace have unparalleled expertise in many areas of defence. The EU needs us. And yet all that the ridiculous Macron could think about at this moment of crisis was pillaging more British fish.
According to some reports, more reasonable counsels have prevailed in Europe, and the French president has been put back in his box so far as this issue is concerned. We may learn at the May 19 summit that our defence companies will be involved in European rearmament.
Yet it remains incredible that the Commission could have ever made the defence of the European continent partly contingent on a deal over fish. This is the face of decadence. How the Russians and Chinese and all our enemies must hold us in contempt.
Nor should we imagine that fish has disappeared as an issue, even if it is no longer linked to a defence and security pact. The Government has been negotiating for an animal and food safety deal, which would obviate the time-consuming and obstructive paperwork that the EU likes to load on hapless British exporters.
Brussels is demanding that Britain signs up to EU food standards – which would mean submitting to the jurisdiction of the European Court of Justice – even though it has previously accepted New Zealand's food standards as being equally good as its own.
It doesn't end there. Because the EU has long hankered after permanent access to Britain's fishing waters, it has seen an opportunity to link the Government's desire for a food deal to the question of fishing rights.
If the EU were prepared to share its database, the Home Office could find out where an illegal immigrant arriving in Britain had previously applied for asylum and been rejected, writes Stephen Glover
There will doubtless be a tremendous jamboree on May 19, and the Prime Minister will herald a new dawn in our relations with the EU. But when the fine print is studied, it'll be clear that the EU has got more out of the 'reset' than the UK. Brussels won't easily vary its strict rules and regulations. It will only relax them in return for significant concessions.
Any agreement probably won't prevent Donald Trump from interpreting the summit as Britain throwing in its lot with the European Union. We may not escape the higher tariffs coming Brussels' way.
The truth is that Starmer idealises the EU, as diehard Remainers do. He'd like to rejoin what he mistakenly regards as an enlightened institution but realises that this is politically impossible, at any rate for the time being. So he plots a series of backdoor deals.
But the European Union has a limited appetite for such agreements. It would cheerfully have us back as a fully-fledged member, though on far meaner terms than we enjoyed before we left.
But until or unless that happens, only the occasional morsel will be tossed in our direction.
We mustn't send a feast back. The EU has been pressing for a 'youth mobility scheme', which would enable 18-30-year-olds to work in Britain for a limited period. Despite having publicly vetoed this idea, the Government has in fact been discussing it with the EU.
It would be unconscionable for it to give the green light to the EU's pet scheme after being denied access to a database that would help it control criminality and illegal immigration.
Here is the Prime Minister, struggling to contain the soaring numbers of people crossing the Channel in boats, having foolishly jettisoned the previous government's Rwanda plan, which might have served as a deterrent. He is in an increasingly desperate situation.
But it seems – if reports are correct – that Brussels won't help its greatest British fan and most ardent suitor.
Will Sir Keir Starmer ever become even dimly aware that the European Union, far from being a beacon of light, is a blinkered and intransigent institution?