This EU ‘reset' deal is far worse than even I feared. Tories must now start unravelling it
I wrote on Saturday about the sorry history leading to Monday's summit meeting with the EU. Well, now we have Starmer's deal, and it's even worse than I thought.
As usual, the EU played hardball. While the British entry to Eurovision was sinking fast on Saturday night, so too was Starmer's reset balloon, and the British team started chucking most of their negotiating ballast over the side in a desperate effort to keep it afloat. We'll certainly remember this Monday. So what the hell just happened?
Five bad things. First, and despite Labour's manifesto commitment to the contrary, we are rejoining the single market for agrifood. We must apply EU laws in our farming and food sectors, in all companies and farms, whether they trade with the EU or not, and EU courts will have the final say on disputes.
Labour seems to believe our food trade has collapsed and their deal will help. They simply don't understand what's going on. Reclassification, trade diversion, substitution of cheaper non-EU goods on our market, even the weather, all this is more important to the trade figures than trading paperwork.
Labour seem to think the British economic renaissance is going to be rebuilt on minor changes to a food and drink trade that amounts to 2-3 per cent of our exports, yet if they really believed this, why are they killing family farms and making them farm solar panels?
The actual effect of this deal will be to make it much easier for the EU, a much bigger, more successful, more diverse, and more expensive agricultural producer, to export to us.
Second, it commits us to joining the single market for electricity, the EU's carbon trading scheme, and their scheme to put tariffs on carbon-unfriendly goods, the so-called CBAMs.
You may think that energy prices are high enough already, but watch this space, because the EU's carbon price is 50 per cent higher than ours. Worse still, we commit to net zero obligations 'at least as ambitious as the EU'. Want to get out of net zero? Tough: you can't, unless the EU agrees.
Third, we've abandoned control of our fishing grounds – otherwise coming back in full next year – until the incredible date of 2038. The UK originally asked for four years and thought the EU might accept six or seven. We finally agreed to 12. Brilliant stuff. I'm reminded of Churchill's wry comment on his dreadnought-building programme: 'The Admiralty demanded six ships; the economists offered four; and we finally compromised on eight.'
This agreement destroys the prospect of rebuilding the fishing industry with our own fish stocks. Labour have promised a recovery fund, but more taxpayers' money is not what the industry needs and it is not the same as building a productive fishing industry catching and selling a product that people want. Labour have been tin-eared to our coastal communities and they will pay the price.
Fourth, there will be a youth mobility scheme. It's rebranded a youth 'experience' scheme but the text makes clear that it's for people volunteering 'or simply travelling' (can't they do this already?) There is no commitment to a cap on numbers, merely that the 'overall number of participants is acceptable to both sides'. Who can have confidence Labour would be tough here? Let's hope they don't move their fisheries negotiator to youth mobility.
And finally, we have to pay. A fee for the right to be governed by the EU on agrifood. Another fee to accept their energy and net zero rules. And a fee to rejoin the Erasmus student scheme. This used to cost us about £150 million a year, and certainly will do so again in future, because we always get more EU students here than we send to Europe, since we have the best universities and the English language. I'm not against EU students coming here, but why can't the EU pay for them, just as we pay for our students abroad under the Turing scheme? But no: soon we will be paying for both.
All this seems to have been paid to get a security and defence agreement which doesn't contain much of either of those things, merely a long list of meetings we get, or might get, to attend. The text even says it is 'based on dialogue and consultation mechanisms to facilitate the exchange of information'. Not exactly Nato, and so much the better for it, of course – but why have we paid so much to get it?
And as for the much-vaunted deal on e-gates at airports, the text provides only for 'exchanges' about 'the potential use of eGates where appropriate.' In many EU airports the 'potential' is already actual, and elsewhere – who knows?
In short: this deal concedes important British interests for very little in return. It begins the process of bit by bit bringing this country back into the embrace of the single market and customs union.
The Conservatives are right to commit to returning these powers to Britain, and Reform is even more right to say that the Windsor Framework and other EU law relics must be scrapped too.
All that will take some work. What we have today is a political agreement. The legal texts will take months to sort out. Many important points have simply been put off and Labour are bound to concede even more on the detail. Labour's Red Wall voters, if there are any left, are not going to be happy.
But the Tories, as the main parliamentary force, must put the work in with real energy and harry Labour every step of the way, in parliament and outside – and then work out a proper plan to take the powers back, and more, in future.
Labour don't care, of course, about what they have conceded. Their main aim is just to get closer to the EU again.
The EU are ruthless: they will happily mouth warm words without letting it deflect them from pursuing their interests. But Labour just can't let go of their former partner. Their affections for Brussels are as warm as ever. But it won't help them and it will only do harm to this country.
We should have realised what was going on last Saturday night – when the Austrians won Eurovision with 'Wasted Love'. This country will pay the price for it.
Lord Frost was Chief Negotiator for exiting the European Union and then a Cabinet minister under the Boris Johnson government from 2019 to 2021. A former diplomat, he was appointed to the House of Lords in 2020
You can watch Lord Frost discuss this subject with Tim Stanley and Kamal Ahmed on today's Daily T podcast here. You can also listen on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts
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