405. Starmer's EU Deal: A New Era

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Welcome.

to the Rustist Politics Live.

Here we are with me, Alistair Campbell.

And me, Rory Stewart.

And talking about the,

well, both Kierstama and Ursula von der Leyen use the old H-word, historic, they said, the first post-Brexit UK-European Union summit.

A lot to digest.

Some bits of it, actually more covered by the agreement than I was expecting, some of it in less detail.

And I think genuinely actually the

Nick Thomas Simmons, the minister who's been in charge of the negotiations, and Michael Ellam, the civil servant who used to be a colleague of mine when he was

Gordon Brown's spokesman back in the day, I think have done a pretty good job.

The trouble, of course, with anything to do with Europe is we are immediately plunged into these parallel universes.

You've got the universe of the Starmer government and the European Union are trying to sort of find practical, pragmatic, technocratic solutions to an event and a deal that took 4% out of the economy.

you've got Farage, Badanock, most of the right-wing media basically saying, regardless of what was said, that this is a terrible betrayal of Brexit.

I see that Boris Johnson has crawled out from under a stone today to

give us his opinions.

I think he could just crawl back.

But anyway, Roy,

what did you take away?

Let me

try to give my sense of what was in the deal, just for people who've not been following the ins and outs.

So

main thing to understand is that the Brexit vote happened in 2016.

There were all these negotiations which didn't work out with Theresa May in 2019.

Boris Johnson came in and finally in December 2020, this thing called a trade and cooperation agreement was signed with the European Union.

And the headline was zero tariffs, zero quotas.

So that means that goods can go, you know, you can sell

I don't know,

a Cumbrian cuckoo clock into the United into the European Union and you don't have to pay tariff on it when it goes in, and there's no quota, there's no limit on the number of cuckoo clocks you can sell.

But because Britain had left the EU and wanted to sign trade deals with other countries, you had to fill in paperwork, paperwork, particularly on rules of origin, proving that that cuckoo clock was made in Cumbria, not made in China, and just coming through Cumbria, otherwise it would be a way of getting around the EU barriers.

And

in these whole negotiations, one of the things that was a real sticking point was phytosanitary standards, which is to say

anything to do with live animals, plants and other stuff moving back and forth across the border had to have a lot of paperwork, a lot of vets inspecting it.

And so the big first breakthrough with this deal is you can now push that stuff across the border.

And of course, in exchange, Britain has to agree that it's going to

remain in lockstep with the European Union standards on these things.

So the European Union can be confident confident that they're not putting in food that doesn't meet European Union standards.

And the European Court of Justice will rule if there's some dispute about whether we're putting a little dash of chlorine on our chicken.

And then the only other things that going on

is talking about carbon tax, so making sure that we unify ourselves with European on a European Union on carbon tax, which also means that we are not going to face potentially hundreds of millions of pounds of charges around divergence.

There's been some conversation around

freedom of movement for young people, youth mobility scheme.

Not freedom of movement, they're emphasizing not freedom of movement.

Youth mobility.

They call it youth mobility.

Kier Starmer kept saying youth experience.

Youth experience.

Making them like a school visit, yeah, no freedom of movement.

No mobility at all.

And then the big losers in all of this

are the fishermen, not the people exporting fish, the people exporting fish, like the Scottish Salmon Association, quite happy because this deal makes it easier to sell seafood into the European Union, but the fishermen who'd hoped that they would be able to catch more fish off UK waters and exclude European Union boats from fishing in European waters were disappointed in 2016, disappointed in 2019, disappointed in 2020, and are really disappointed now because basically till 2038

the European Union basically continues to have almost the same access to British waters that existed before Brexit.

Have I got it?

Yeah.

Yeah, I think there's a few other bits we can go through, but just first around the fishing, because this goes to the heart of

the politics.

I was in Scotland over the weekend, and because Fiona and I wanted to swim in Ullswater, Roy, we stopped near Pooley Bridge, scene of one of your

communications

triumphs where you ended up at the wrong end of the bridge.

That's right.

We don't need to tell that story.

Anyway, so coming back today by car means that I've done nothing but listen to different news stations covering this.

And virtually every single interview was about, until the deal was done, when it sort of broadened out a bit, was basically about fishing and about the theme of betrayal more generally.

And the reason for that, and this is what just gets my goat about the way that our media political ecosystem works.

It's almost a decade now since we've left, since the referendum, rather.

And it was like going back in time.

Nigel Farage, before seeing a word, says, if I'm your prime minister, I'll be reversing every last dot and comma of this.

Kemi Badenock at least sort of waited to hear what might be in it before coming out to say she's gobsmacked at this terrible betrayal.

And even you, Rory, even you there,

you said big losers, okay?

One of the interviews I heard, so Farage comes on and says, this spells the end of the UK fishing industry.

At which point, I think it was LBC News, interviewed a very calm, measured guy called Mike Cohen from UK Fisheries, who, yes, wasn't very happy about some of the arrangements.

I'll tell you what he wasn't particularly happy about in a minute, but actually said in answer to the question, well, is Nigel Farage right that this is the end of the UK fishing industry?

He said, no, he's not, because actually, this just extends the deal that we've got now.

Okay.

it doesn't make it any worse it leaves the status quo yeah yeah yeah added to which one thing which I didn't hear until I actually read the agreement was the fact that the government is putting in I can't remember the sum but it's some it's a sort of three-figure million so 200 300 whatever it was million into coastal towns to help sort of you know develop

I think the way they the way they put it was to give fishing communities the opportunity to exploit this new this new arrangement but the other thing that I think is worth just pointing out...

Sorry, exploit the existing arrangement, says he pedantically.

They haven't really changed the arrangement about how much they can do it.

Exploit the fund.

Exploit the fund that they're giving within the context of this arrangement.

But just one thing.

And the guy, Mike Cohen, he was very at pains to point out, because the interviewer was saying, yeah, but hold on a minute.

Okay, you're not 100% happy, but the government has to look at the bigger picture and food and farm exports are much, much bigger.

Now, I just went to have a look at it so the fishing industry in total in total and I'm not minimizing fishing it's a really tough industry in my view but it's worth about a billion okay

the whole thing food and farm exports which are covered by this bigger deal that you've talked about are worth exports to the European Union alone worth 10 times more than that.

So the government does have to, and that's clearly where the deal has been done.

You know, instead of, and Kierstama tried basically to say that the reason why 12 years is better than one is because it gives people stability and so forth.

So I think fishing is significant, but I'm not convinced that it's, as it were, the most important deal.

Farage makes it that, or tries to make it that,

because he thinks that's the best way to sort of wave the patriotic flag.

The biggest betrayal of fishermen came with Brexit itself.

And that's why Johnson and Farage.

And their expectations,

yeah, they believed that somehow they would be able to get control of uk waters which they which they

instead of which they've lost 30 percent of of the of their trade since brexit

um the

big picture also that i was looking at is this question as we get closer to the european union closer to a sort of customs union arrangement people will begin to point out that this constrains the kind of trade deals we can do with other countries so one example might be if we sign up to not chlorinating our chicken, we can't really sign in a deal with a country that's trying to sell us chlorinated chicken because we're now governed by European Union food standards.

But I was looking at the figures comparing this great much-touted India deal with the EU deal.

And here are some figures for you.

So our exports to the EU are about 42% of our goods exports.

To India, 2%.

Services, about $125 billion to the EU, to India, 5%.

Tariffs with the EU, zero.

Tariffs with India, well, cars, about 60%, whiskey about one hundred and fifty per cent.

Savings from rejoining the European Customs Union,

in addition to what we've got now, would be about seven billion pounds a year.

The trade deal with India is about zero point seven billion, in other words one tenth of that.

And we've lost about twenty seven billion pounds of trade with with Europe.

And of course, the background of this also is that there's been a very big shift in views on Brexit.

Only thirty per cent of people in the latest YouGov poll now think that it was the right thing to do to vote to leave the European Union.

That's what's so crazy about the debate.

So the, you know, and as you know, Roy, my big complaint about the broadcast is always the way they take their agenda from

the media and from a very small number of very right-wing politicians like Farage and now Badnock, who's sort of trying to fight him on the same ground.

To my mind, if you were genuinely reflecting public opinion, that sense of where the debate has shifted would be much, much more a bigger part of the narrative.

But it's not.

To be fair, I thought at the press conference, it was really interesting.

I listened to the whole press conference on the radio.

And

so Keir Starmer, you had Ursula von der Leyen, Antonio Costa, so the two European Union leaders

and Keir Starmer.

And they had sort of, you know, a few UK journalists and then a few non-UK European.

And it was again back to this parallel universe.

So Chris Mason's was the first question, you know, fisherman betrayal.

To be fair to Robert Peston, our rest is money colleague, I thought he asked a really interesting question because he basically said to Keir Starmer, is there not a danger you're getting the worst of all worlds?

You're upsetting people who are still committed to Brexit by making clear that you're unpicking parts of it, but you're not going anywhere near to filling the gap with the damage, the economic damage that Brexit's done.

And I just feel the one bit I think is missing from

the Labour government politics on this is actually the constant calling out of the people who did the damage.

Nigel Farage shouldn't be allowed to go into a studio without being really pinned on his role, the promises he made.

And it's so easy now for him to say, oh, well, if I'd been in charge, it would have been a very different sort of Brexit.

They all say that, because the truth is, they didn't have a clue what Brexit was going to be.

So I actually, as you know, so Fiona was in the car, and one of the things you have to understand about Fiona is that when I'm trying to listen to something like a press conference on the radio really carefully, because I'm going to talk to Rory Stewart about it in a couple of hours' time, this constant commentary, she was coming at it absolutely from the perspective of this doesn't go nearly far enough.

Well, so let me join her.

And there's a lot of that.

There's a lot of that.

Well, I agree with Fiona on this.

And I take it further because I think the fault is partly with Britain, but it's also with the European Union.

And what I mean by this is that I think

there was a real opportunity to take these concrete steps.

And in the end, in the end, the big historical picture, these are kind of minor tinkerings.

They're improvements, no doubt, makes it better.

But they're still minor tinkerings within a complicated trade deal.

In a sense, I talked to Anand Menon, our friend,

who said that it's just a kind of reminder that Brexit's never a done event.

It's a process that's just going to go on every year for the rest of our lives as you keep kind of tinkering with these deals back and forth.

So I would have thought the really big opportunity would have been to take a step back and say, we're in a completely new world.

We're in the world of Trump.

Look what's happened to Carney.

Look what's happening in Ukraine.

Look what's happening with tariffs.

Look what's happening with Russia.

And we...

you know, Starma, Macron, Metz, and the European Union, we have a much, much bigger vision of where we're going.

And we're going to set some concrete steps.

And this is the first step in that narrative.

And you would connect it to an economic story, you'd connect it to a defense story, you'd connect it to a

democracy story, et cetera.

And that's what I think is really sad here.

What we really want is

some courage and people to say,

here are concrete steps, here are milestones.

We're not going to be sort of fuzzy.

But let's return to some of the really bold ideas.

How about

the Balkans, countries in the Balkans, joining the single market?

How about thinking about putting

UK, Canadian, Turkish forces forward in Estonia?

We've got some British forces there, but why not big permanent plan for to defend the Baltic?

Why don't we really come up with a really interesting idea around illegal migration?

So

get into that in the main pod when we talk about Germany's policies.

But I think there was an opportunity here, if Europe had been imaginative, to actually solve the issue of the small boats crossings across the Channel as part of this deal.

Well, I think on that,

I'll tell you what I was expecting when there was the sort of build-up to this, because you really had the three areas.

You have the sort of the general strategic approach and the partnership, and there was a lot of talk of that.

And that is that is interesting.

And the mood music on that is good, and that's fine.

Then you had the

trade and cooperation and

the changes, which once you've ruled out single market customs union, then you are inevitably, as you say, talking about fairly major tinkering, but ultimately,

you know, you're not changing the fundamental.

And then the third area, which I was expecting more, was in relation to defence and security.

And because what you've got now is clearly ongoing, the process by which Britain can be involved in this European Union, this big fund, 150 billion Euro fund that they've set up.

They're clearly desperate for the UK to be involved

to a greater extent in relation to Ukraine.

But again, I think the politics impinge on this and politics without rebuttal.

So, again, on my,

I had a weekend basically going to different Scottish football matches, and on the way to one of them, again, Nigel Farage, who basically I think he lives inside, he and Tice live in the BBC headquarters.

And he was on another interview where he was essentially saying, Well, part of the great betrayal, the great sellout, we're clearly going to be sending British soldiers to fight under a European flag.

Okay, I mean, absolute fucking nonsense, right?

But where you are absolutely right, he's allowed to say that and feel confident that that helps his political project because he isn't being put back in his box in relation to just how ridiculous a thing that is to say.

The fact is that European security has changed because of Ukraine, is continuing to change because of Trump, and the European governments, including the UK, have to adapt to that and so I where I'm completely with you I overall thought they've done a pretty good job on this I really do both sides

pretty good job but I was I was expecting more in relation to defense

but I think I think this isn't I mean I think you I think we can believe both things I think we can think Nick Timothy Simmons did a really good job but in the end as you said at the beginning this is

I think we can even I think Nick Timothy Simmons would be a love child involving Nick Timothy the Tory MP and somebody called Simmons I think you mean Nick Thomas Simmons, but anyway.

Nick Thomas, I'm so sorry.

I hope so weird.

Sorry, I don't know what I was talking about.

That was a Thomas, I did.

That was a bit weird.

That was a kind of sort of strange thing going on in my head there.

I was distracted by my children coming in.

Listen, I think the team did a really good technocratic job, as you said at the beginning.

But there is still a big mystery.

Why this new age of Trump hasn't yet got these European leaders stepping up and saying, okay, we are going to think about what the global trading system can be in an age of Trump.

What is a rules-based international order, to use that kind of jargon?

But more obvious things, you know, we just interviewed Ed Miliband.

If we're going to be serious about climate policy, we've got to do it with the whole of Europe together.

No point Britain doing it on its own.

The only hope is to do it with Europe.

And if we're going to be serious about AI, no point Britain doing it on its own.

We've got to really think about it, because the money involved in these things.

I mean, in climate, it's that we need to get 15% of global emissions, not 2% of global emissions, if we're going to make a difference.

And in AI, it's because it's going to take hundreds of billions, an immense investment, to get this off the ground.

And we've got a huge opportunity also, just to finish a little bit of the puzzle, in getting the financial markets from Britain connected again with the European financial markets, because in order, my friend Enrico Letta, who I keep trying to sell to you, the future former Italian Prime Minister, who I'm hoping one day we can interview, has been going around saying that what we need if we're going to get defence going in Europe is the City of London, that they need to get financial passporting going again, they need to make easier relationships with Britain if they're simply to get the funds together to get EU defence off the ground.

Yeah.

One of the things that seems to have been agreed, Roy, which I think would be of particular interest to you, was

the use of e-gates at more European airports.

I think I told you, I can't remember if I told our listeners about what I did at Lisbon airport last year.

You did tell us.

I was very lucky not to be with you.

That sounded a very embarrassing moment.

Just to remind you,

he stood up after he'd been queuing for an hour and started shouting at the entire crowd, how many of you voted for Brexit?

And nobody, not one person admitted it, not one.

No, so I think there's that.

And then I think the other, I think the somebody, funny enough, I got a message from

somebody at the New European, if it was Matt Kelly, the editor of the European, he said, some of this feels small, but the vibe shift feels really big.

And I think that's quite an interesting way to look at it.

This was a, and that said to me that there was quite a lot of confidence in the way that Kirstama was sort of projecting it.

It's never, ever going to be enough

for people like Fiona and me, who just think this has been the biggest, I call it Nash now, National Act of Self-Harm, N-A-S-H.

And, and, but this, but I think if you're less than a year into

your first, hopefully, the first of a few terms in government,

it's a pretty good first start.

And then, of course, you know, once you get used to the idea that this is now part of the calendar, there's an annual US, an annual EU-UK summit.

And I think the other thing, I spoke to somebody in the Trump administration last week who basically was saying the point you made earlier.

They don't they they they actually think it's in their interest as well for Britain to have a pretty good relationship with the European Union.

Admitually this guy was on the on the civil service side, as it were, rather than one of the kind of

MAGA politicians.

So yeah,

I think it was a pretty good first start.

But the front pages of the right-wing, the front pages of the right-wing rags tomorrow are going to be

something to be seen.

Two quick, just bring the comments, and we've got a few more minutes to go.

Rhinonymous,

it's a great name.

Always agreed with Campbell, but I do think Farage sits in his head a bit too much.

I did think that a little bit, actually, when you were sort of giving the vision.

when when you I was a bit worried at that I think that's what Rhenonymous was coming from look when you were moving on to say that Farage was camping in the BBC studios but I did worry a bit that he was camping in your head and no one time I'm sorry can I am I allowed to respond to that am I allowed to respond to that yeah

because the reason is I'll tell you why it's not that he's sitting in my head but I think one of the reasons he's got himself to the place where he now is is because the media treat him like a commentator not a politician and the two main parties have not gone after him as though he were.

They keep saying he's a serious threat, but they don't treat him like one.

So it's not that rhinoceros, whatever your name was, rhinymous, that he lives in my head,

but I think he needs to live in the head of Labour and Tory strategists a bit more than he does, and they need to be more effective about dealing with him.

Sorry, beg your pardon.

Okay, very good, very good.

One-time pad.

There's no collective strategic vision for us as Europeans.

The EU needs to do a big piece on setting its aims and objectives.

Maybe it's too difficult with divergent member states.

But can I have a go at your friend Macron here?

Inspired by One Time Pad.

Have you followed this absolute nonsense that he's doing about a European political community?

So he's envisaged this sort of...

association of democracies, which doesn't include Russia and Belarus, and he's completely failed to notice that he's actually already got one of those things sitting in Strasbourg called the Council of Europe within his own country.

So instead of leaning into an entire institution that already exists, making something of it, you know, let's say a big meeting every six months of the heads of the Council of Europe, he's trying to then, in Tirana, set up some whole new body, which has no secretariat, no agenda, no direction.

No, no, no, no, no, go on.

I think that, look, the European political community, as I see it,

was a and you're right that Russia and Belarus are excluded because I think it was motivated by two things.

One is

Ukraine, bring together, show the size of the European family that is on the Ukrainian side against Russia.

And the other thing was Brexit.

I think this is a way of involving the UK.

And there was Kierstarma in Tirana, but so was Erdogan.

So was

exactly the same messages as the Council of Europe.

I mean, history by country.

The Council of Europe.

Specifically.

I did have a chat with, because as you say, it was in Albania, and Adi Rama did a bloody good job, Albania did a bloody bloody good job of putting it on.

I mean, it looked amazing.

And I think that, yeah, I think they probably all agreed it could do more direction, but I don't see it as a complete mirror.

And by the way, we have been saying, Rory, that new institutions are going to develop in this sort of new world.

One thing we haven't mentioned, Nathan Townsend there has a question.

Where do you think youth mobility ends up?

Again, that was something that I think was a little bit unclear.

They wanted to, the Europeans wanted to talk about, you know, and Ursula von der Leyen was talking about when she studied in London, it was all very romantic.

Keir wanted to sort of emphasize putting a cap on it and duration and visas.

Um, so that's one where I think they're still working out to me.

That is a matter of time.

Why is Stalman worried about that one?

It's a very, I still can't quite understand.

It seems the most interesting.

Maybe

what is it?

European Union students come over for two years.

Ursula van der Leyen has a lovely time studying and she goes back again.

What's the problem?

I wonder, maybe

Farage is hovering close to his head.

Listen, this is what I really think they need.

I'll tell you that one thing I'd say about back to Albania, Eddie Rama,

for a tiny country like that to put on the

show that they did for this EPC summit and all the leaders that were there.

And it was extraordinary.

I sent you the AI thing they did where they did these little AIs of all the leaders as children saying, welcome to Albania.

And it was really funny.

And then, and you know the thing about he designs his own wallpaper and it was all over the place it looked great it was really creative but what it said to me was he's got real confidence right and I just think that I thought I thought Keir's confidence projection was okay today better than usual but I think on stuff like that sees it what is the big what is the big deal with against youth mobility

sees it sees it because it was actually I would have said, I don't know whether this is, maybe this is, I don't understand stuff at all, but I would have thought there would be an instinct to say this is the perfect gift.

If you've got a much bigger strategic vision, you know, 10-year vision about defense, AI, climate,

free trade, rules-based international order, migration, UNHCR,

use this as a symbol of how you're getting there and then set another milestone in two years' time and just get that sense that we're all going.

Yeah, yeah.

No, anyway, listen, I think it was, I'm a little, I'm a bit happier today than I was yesterday.

And I thought that Farage and

Badnock were,

I thought their responses were pretty desperate.

They were both pre-scripted, which is never a good sign.

Always try and work out what is actually the substance and then attack it, as opposed to actually,

from the word go,

we're going to go for it.

God, we're getting a lot of comments, aren't we?

We're getting a lot of comments.

And some, well, let's take one last one and then we've got to we've we're gonna have to go but um yeah we're gonna have to record our main episode aren't we by the way i should explain to our listeners and viewers the reason we were going to rory and i our diaries are a bit sort of a bit clogged up this week so we're recording the main podcast and the q a today but we thought there's a danger that you know on this one in particular we've kind of felt we had to do it today that's why we've done it as a live so you and we'll put it out to everybody tomorrow but then we'll have the main podcast wednesday and then

can we finish then alisa with a quick crisp response to you to Darren Small Darren Small I just wish Starmer would knock it off with a MAGA light policies on government efficiency and immigration we'll never go far enough to please the far right and we'll lose the liberal left not a good look

yeah

you said briefly

yeah yeah okay yeah and somebody by the way john ferris has just pointed out that alistair was very well behaved in lincoln didn't have a pop pop at him.

That's Farage.

I went at him over substance Rory, and that is what we need more of that.

All right, guys, thank you for tuning in.

We said maximum half an hour.

We've done half an hour.

Lots of you tuned in.

Lots of you asked questions.

Sorry, we couldn't answer them all.

Thank you, and see you soon.

Thanks again.

Bye-bye.

See you soon.

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