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After nearly seven years of acrimony, the UK and the EU are talking sweetly to each other. The Ukraine war reminded them how much they have in common.
Prime Minister Rishi Sunak and European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen showed a willingness to compromise over the Northern Ireland Protocol, fostering good will on both sides. It also helps that Sunak and President Emmanuel Macron get on well, since friction between London and Paris had undermined the broader UK-EU relationship.
Does all this presage a profound shift in UK-EU relations? The short answer is no, at least not until the governing Conservative Party undergoes the kind of radical transformation that currently seems unlikely. True, only 22 Conservative MPs voted against the ‘Windsor Framework’ (which revised the Northern Ireland Protocol). And the Democratic Unionist Party’s hostility to that revision is futile: though it may boycott the region’s executive for a while, in the long run it will have to accept the framework, since nobody is going to offer an alternative.
Yet the Conservative Party remains profoundly eurosceptic. Sunak wants good relations with the EU but is wary of upsetting hard-line MPs in the European Research Group (ERG). The 22 opposing Windsor included three former party leaders – Boris Johnson, Iain Duncan-Smith and Liz Truss – who can make a lot of noise. A further 50 Conservatives abstained in the vote.
The Conservative Party remains profoundly eurosceptic. Sunak wants good relations with the EU but is wary of upsetting hard-line MPs in the European Research Group.
Tweet thisSo Sunak has refused to withdraw the nonsensical Retained EU Law Bill. This would require ministers to scrap, by default, UK legislation that derives from EU law, by the end of this year, unless they decide to amend or retain it – with almost no parliamentary scrutiny. Nobody is sure how many pieces of legislation are covered by the bill, but the number might be around 4,000.
The civil service lacks the capacity to review so many laws so quickly. NGOs fear that many social and environmental protections will be lost, while businesses worry about an unstable regulatory environment. Furthermore, as Anton Spisak has argued, the bill may undermine parts of the Windsor Framework. Yet Sunak is pushing ahead with the bill, perhaps hoping that the House of Lords will do him a favour by insisting on major amendments (there are also reports that he may accept a six-month extension to the deadline for decisions on scrapping EU-derived rules).
In another bid to placate the hard right, Sunak is prioritising the Illegal Migration Bill, which would prevent those coming to the UK in small boats from applying for asylum. His own government admits that this may well breach international law. And Sunak tolerates a home secretary who in October called for the UK to leave the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR). Suella Braverman was apparently unaware that Britain’s participation in the ECHR is an integral part of both the Good Friday Agreement and the justice and home affairs provisions of the Trade and Co-operation Agreement between the UK and the EU.
Despite these clouds, the warmer cross-Channel weather should produce some benefits. There may be an accord between financial market regulators, easier trading of electricity across the Channel, and British re-entry to the Horizon programme of scientific research – the EU had blocked all three because of the protocol. But Sunak is hesitating over Horizon, worrying about whether it is value for money.
A more fundamental rapprochement will probably have to await the arrival of a Labour government, which opinion polls suggest is likely after the next election (which must be held by January 2025). Keir Starmer, the Labour leader, and his chief lieutenants are instinctively pro-European. He does not have to worry about anything like the ERG. Starmer is nevertheless cautious on Europe, believing that he will not win back ‘red wall’ seats in the north of England and the Midlands if he appears too pro-EU.
Keir Starmer, the Labour leader, and his chief lieutenants are instinctively pro-European. He does not have to worry about anything like the European Research Group....
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