🚨🚨"Renegotiating the UK’s Brexit deal will take more than warm words". Meaty read from long-time #brexit chronicler Peter Foster who paints a fairly pessimistic but realistic assessment of Keir Starmer's reset with Brussels. Brief 🧵ft.com/content/260041…

Peter first starts with another Financial Times piece from the week which announced that the EU will not offer the new Lab government a deal to ease the plight of UK touring musicians in the 🇪🇺 pointing to some important realities with relevance beyond the narrow issue of touring artists. /2

Financial Times Most obviously, a deal on touring musicians was a Labour manifesto commitment. The EU knows this, yet is still not minded to budge, because changes to the UK’s satisfaction would require reopening the Trade and Cooperation Agreement. /3

Financial Times The European Commission said the same thing to the Conservative government last March, arguing that fixing the musicians’ problems means carve-outs in areas like customs, cabotage (road haulage rules) and professional services that are foundational to the TCA. /4

Financial Times So two takeaways: for all the warm diplomatic words the underlying message is that Labour won’t get materially different treatment than the CONs.  Secondly, Brussels remains of the view that the TCA is the primary vehicle of EU-UK relations. /5

Financial Times That’s not intended as an adversarial statement: it’s a function of the fact that LAB wants the same things — no free movement, no SM, no CU — as the Tories.  As one EU official put it: “It’s not clear why we’d reopen the TCA when doing so would have much the same result". /6

Financial Times That self-limiting principle applies in other areas where LAB has expressed interest in improving EU-UK relations. In an interview with Financial Times before the election, Rachel Reeves singled out reducing red tape for the UK chem biz as an area where the UK could look for an EU deal. /7

Financial Times Rachel Reeves But as previously discussed, while some progress can be made via the TCA on reducing technical barriers to trade in chemicals and other areas, the UK cannot go deeper without being part of the EU single market. /8

Financial Times Rachel Reeves That’s because, as the briefing documents note, there is no mechanism for countries outside the single market to access EU bodies like the chemicals agency, ECHA, in Helsinki. This in turn limits the data-sharing on which chemical regulation is based. /9

Financial Times Rachel Reeves Even where there is an existing provision within the TCA — such as mutually recognising professional qualifications — progress will not be straightforward, as the Tories discovered when trying and failing to get a deal on architects before losing power. /10

Financial Times Rachel Reeves And even when such deals are complete, their benefits are necessarily limited by the UK’s decision to remain outside the EU SM which allows for the free movement of persons. Even if this intra-EU professional mobility is imperfect, it must be better than for third countries. /11

Financial Times Rachel Reeves So Peter asks why has Labour picked targets for its EU-UK reset negotiation that it was clear in advance are both marginal in value and difficult to achieve?

Financial Times Rachel Reeves Ironically, it’s quite possible that Labour plumped for a “musicians deal as an easier alternative to the idea of a full-blown youth mobility deal. This the leadership keeps rejecting because it smacks too greatly of a return to free movement, even though it isn’t. /13

Financial Times Rachel Reeves "The result is that what many had hoped would be an early “win-win” confidence-building measure that respected both sides’ red lines — no free movement, not reopening the TCA — is now in danger of becoming a bone of contention." /14

Financial Times Rachel Reeves Even if you think British objections to a youth mobility scheme are a negotiating ploy to build it up into a big EU “offensive interest” to be parlayed later for favours elsewhere, you’re also accepting that we’re heading for a traditional Brussels horse-trading contest. /15

Financial Times Rachel Reeves On past performance, that probably isn’t good news. Optimists observe that the Commission can be flexible when it wants to be; and that Commission President Ursula von der Leyen is a pragmatist and sees the wider geopolitical picture. /16

Financial Times Rachel Reeves They cite Brussels’s eventual movement over Northern Ireland with the Windsor framework; and its decision to extend the rules-of-origin clauses for electric vehicles, as proof of this. /17

Financial Times Rachel Reeves "But the EU had very obvious self-interest at stake in both cases — steadying Northern Irish politics and protecting its car industry from Chinese imports. It is less clear what the drivers of EU flexibility would be on many other files of interest to London, as noted above." /18

Financial Times Rachel Reeves Personal reflection; I agree very much with Peter's analysis which is sound and based on a more realistic understanding of the EU position which is, for good or bad, driven by self-interest. /19

Financial Times Rachel Reeves If Labour wishes to move further on EU relationship without abandoning its red lines (which are very destructive for building something good with the bloc) it needs to understand this simple truth that its demands must be something that Brussels is interested in. /ends