Has Starmer Blown up his Brexit Reset?

Thoughts on Labour's craven AI surrender, Trump's green light for bribery and the latest ominous signal on US support for Ukraine

Photo by Martin Castro on Unsplash

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• Setting Back the Reset: Starmer chooses America First

• Trump’s Green Light for Bribery: Another blow to the rule-based system

• Ukraine Deal-Making: Why is Trump adopting Kremlin talking points?

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1. Setting Back the Reset

Has Sir Keir Starmer just blown up his own Brexit reset? It is just a week since the British prime minister to much fanfare attended an informal dinner of leaders of the European Union where he sought to persuade them of Britain’s new-found eagerness to build a deeper relationship with the bloc after the chaos and distrust of the previous decade. His reward was the announcement of a summit on May 19 that is attended to agree the parameters of the reset negotiations.

I wrote at the weekend about the scepticism I detected in Brussels last week about the sincerity or seriousness of this supposed reset. In particular, there was puzzlement that Starmer could claim to be looking for a deeper relationship with the EU while sticking to the same red lines as Boris Johnson which had led today’s economically damaging deal and while offering so little in return.

The words “cherry-picking” and “cakeism” came up frequently to describe the same old British approach of seeking selective access to the EU single market without accepting its obligations. And there was particular disappointment that Starmer had so dismissively rejected the EU’s proposal for a youth mobility scheme that was widely seen on the continent as not just economically and culturally desirable but a test of Britain’s European commitment.

Now Starmer has surely confirmed those misgivings with his decision alongside the US to refuse to sign an international agreement on AI at the end of this week’s global summit in Paris. Of course, a summit communique is just a bit of paper. It does not commit Britain to anything so one can argue that it does not change anything. But that is precisely the point. AI policy experts have been left scratching their heads wondering what exactly in this relatively bland document signed by 60 other countries that Britain could have objected to so much.

You don’t need a chabot to know the answer. Britain didn’t sign the communique because it disagreed with its contents, nor as the government has subsequently tried to spin, because the wording was “too restrictive” and “didn’t provide enough practical clarity on global governance”. It did so because America wasn’t going to sign it and it is desperate to curry favour with Trump. But it would be naive to imagine that this obsequiousness will not have been noticed in European capitals and will not have consequences for the reset.