John Redwood: Starmer’s EU reset is a well-trodden dead end

Sir John Redwood is a former MP for Wokingham and a former Secretary of State for Wales.

Conservatives have never been more needed. The economy is floundering on the back of excessive tax rises and runaway spending. The government has been forced to recognise the need for all women spaces and fair rules for sport.

Meanwhile the Prime Minister refuses to talk about his efforts to give away powers and money to the EU after the mad surrender of the Chagos islands and large sums to Mauritius we cannot afford, whilst his coalition of the willing against Russia lacks purpose and military strength and is now seeking a US guarantee.

Kemi Badenoch has done well upholding women’s rights, exposing the lack of a proper enquiry into the rape gangs, and highlighting the disastrous budget. She has given Robert Jenrick licence to oppose energetically on a number of fronts, and has encouraged Andrew Griffith to expose the anti-business agenda of the government.

The Government has crashed the economy, driving longer term interest rates well above the 2022 levels Rachel Reeves said had been so damaging. (They have stayed well above all year, so far.) It has allowed small boat crossings to scale new unacceptable peaks. Birmingham, run by Labour at national and local level, is gripped by a disastrous bin strike and offers harrowing pictures of Labour government in action.

We are being prepared for the great sell out. In his passion for an EU reset, Sir Keir Starmer is rumoured to be exploring giving away most of our fish to foreign boats for the rest of this Parliament. That means surrendering the growth opportunity of rebuilding our fishing fleet and investing in new fish processing at home.

The Government is also looking at open borders for the under-30s at a time when most people think we need to curb migration. We do not have the homes, NHS capacity, water, electricity, or broadband for hundreds of thousands more people. It is discussing putting us under more EU rules on food when we need to rebuild our home industry which those very rules ran down.

So what is the EU offering us that we might like? Nothing. There is no movement to get rid of the damaging border in the Irish sea between two parts of the UK. There is no wish to streamline border formalities or to go for mutual enforcement where we certify our exports meet EU requirements. There is no understanding by either side of the big damage to industry being done by the similar emissions trading schemes. (Indeed, both sides want to do more damage by introducing a carbon border tax or tariff.)

Brussels does not want a friendlier and more positive trading arrangement. It uses the generous British offer of our providing more military support to the EU as an opportunity to force another bad deal on fish. It would like to enlist us in any trade fight it might enter with the US. It has no peace plan for Ukraine, and no wish to give Ukraine sufficient military back up to force Russia back to its own borders.

The EU has fallen further and further behind the US economy this century. Their GPP per head is now just half the US (with British GDP only one fifth higher than the EU). Brussels’ economic model, which lingers in British policies, is not working.

The UK needs to offer a bold tariff free trade agreement to the US and set out a growth strategy that lowers taxes, gets entrepreneurs and investors back to the UK, and rebuilds our main industries.