UK’s EU deal opens door for more

Shamik Das was the Labour Party communications and political officer in the European Parliament. He is also the former communications and public affairs manager for the European Movement.

A leader in Britain steps forward, saying he will “Make Brexit Work.”

He agrees to a new deal with the European Union, sorting out the disputed Northern Ireland Protocol that requires checks on trade from the United Kingdom to Northern Ireland. He talks about bringing down barriers and avoiding divergence; he makes noises about (re)joining EU programs and agrees on a new security deal. He is a calm, sensible voice, acting in the national interest.

Surprisingly, that leader is Tory Prime Minister Rishi Sunak — not Labour leader Keir Starmer.

But with the prime minister now openly appropriating Starmer’s slogan, solutions and métier, the question becomes, where to go next for the opposition on Brexit?

First and foremost, one must congratulate Sunak on getting it done — the headlines, the detail, the choreography — against the current backdrop of rising tensions in Northern Ireland and economic ennui throughout the U.K.

Additionally, props are due for the Labour leader as well, for saying beforehand that he’d back a deal — no ifs, no buts — giving the government the green light to negotiate freely, without being held hostage by backbench Tory malcontents, who surprisingly seem to have almost universally greeted the agreement with as open a mind as they’re capable of. Though former Prime Minister Boris Johnson and Northern Ireland’s Democratic Unionist Party being as they are, have not yet been won over.

In the immediate term, this Windsor Framework deal on the Northern Ireland Protocol — which has seemingly been broadly welcomed by all communities in Northern Ireland, across parliament, in Brussels and EU capitals, in Washington, and by the markets — should calm everything down.

Both politicians and the public are exhausted after 10 years of Brexit wrangling, and they are keen to move on, even as polls consistently show dwindling support for it. “It’s sh** but we’re stuck, I don’t wanna hear no more,” seems to be the gist. And both main party leaders — as well as the BBC — will now follow along, saying as little on Brexit as they can.

And as a strategy, this will work — until it doesn’t.

For as welcome as this deal may be, and however many issues it may solve for Northern Ireland, the Windsor Framework still does not, and cannot, change the fundamentals of Brexit for the U.K.

It cannot change the irrefutable reality that being outside the EU, the single market and the customs union means barriers remain; that there’s no free movement of people or goods; that jobs, growth and investment are impacted; that the country remains outside major EU programs; and that it has left databases and agreements on migration, crime, terrorism . . . The list is endless.

This week it’s tomatoes and turnips and our empty supermarket shelves, all caused by a lack of workers to pick home-grown produce and the inability to freely import them. Next week, it could be energy costs and shortages. Weeks later, it’ll be travel chaos with Easter holiday passport and customs queues at stations, ports and airports.

Every week, businesses are going bust or relocating because of Brexit, across sectors both familiar and new. Just a few weeks ago, it was reported that several U.K. Fintech companies — an industry that generated annual revenues of £11 billion, employed 76,500 people and attracted £3.6 billion of investment — had fully or partially relocated.

So, even though parties and voters may have bored of Brexit, Brexit hasn’t bored of them. And it will reach out and reel them back to reality, time and again.

But while these nightmares won’t fully end until Brexit does, the horrors can be eased with further agreements like Windsor, bringing down barriers and rebuilding bridges step by step. With European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen and the EU showing how amenable and open they are to mutually beneficial deals, the door will remain open — and it’s a door Starmer must walk through if Labour wins the next election.

Given then that the main guts of Starmer’s Five-Point Plan to Make Brexit Work appear to be the same as Sunak’s, it would be understandably tempting for the Labour leader to just take the win and “Keep Calm and Keiry On.” And if an election was imminent, maybe that would be enough.

However, considering an election could be nearly two years away — especially as Sunak appears to have united the Tories as best he can, and is unlikely to be toppled — Starmer will need something more.

It needn’t be much, just enough to keep pace with reality. And he could do this by pledging to hold on to what the U.K. still has — through concerted opposition to employment, consumer and environmental rights, protections and standards being stripped away by the retained EU law bill. Or he could do so by regaining some of what’s been lost — first via associate membership to programs and schemes, and then regaining some more, bit by bit.

Starmer could, indeed, go from small steps to big leaps, all while remaining outside the single market and customs union, a position he reiterated last week — even though it would make it harder for him to achieve the highest sustained growth in the G7, along with the rest of his missions, and even though Sunak himself extolled the virtues of single market membership, saying that Northern Ireland will be in an “unbelievably special position,” with international companies “queueing up to invest” in the only part of the country still in both the U.K. and EU internal markets.

As it stands, we’re already at peak divergence. And the only path forward is closer cooperation, fewer barriers and better deals. The only way to make Brexit work is by killing it, getting it done by undoing it, and taking back control by getting back to the negotiating table.

Even Brexiters can see the truth now.