The timing of Sir Keir Starmer’s whirlwind visit to meet France’s President Emmanuel Macron earlier today was interesting, to say the least. The Labour leader’s trip to Paris to have Jupiter’s blessing as Britain’s Prime Minister in waiting just happened to coincide with the release of EU’s latest plans to offer Britain and other European countries “associate membership” in a move that could rebuild the UK’s ties with the bloc.
Luck or coincidence? Who knows. But the timing looks particularly neat, especially after the Labour leader’s comments earlier this week that he would like a “better deal” with the EU as the present one which runs out soon is too thin.
The EU’s latest blueprint, put together by France and Germany, contains two big ideas: closer integration and a tight “inner circle” for the most committed members but also an overhaul of membership into four tiers.
Those other tiers would include current and future EU member states, as well as associate membership and membership of the wider European Political Community (EPC) which would be open to the UK.
The most interesting for Starmer – and the Labour party – is the so-called associate membership which would form the bloc’s first “outer tier”. This could include members of the EU’s single market which are not in the EU, such as Switzerland. Or indeed, as the blueprint suggests, “even the UK”,
Members of this “outer ring” would not be bound to “ever closer union” and further integration, it said. Nor would they have to get involved in areas such as justice or home affairs.
However, it is likely that this outer tier which is aimed at new members such as Ukraine joining over the next few years, would have to abide by the European Court of Justice and make payments. There is no such thing as something for nothing.
The idea is not new. It’s one that is loosely linked to the new grouping called the European Political Community launched by President Macron last year in Prague which saw leaders from 40 European countries attend – including our own then PM, Liz Truss. Macron has for a long time harboured ways of bringing together European countries sitting on the edges of the core 26 EU members, and his new EPC forum was one initiative which he hoped would bring together like-minded allies as they wait to join the EU.
While Starmer has made it clear that a Labour government would not seek to rejoin either the single market or the customs union as that would be a Brexit betrayal, he’s also made it clear that warmer relations with the EU can only be a good thing.
His meeting today with Macron – 45 minutes behind closed doors – was part of that warming-up process, and is bound to have covered which potential ring the UK might consider joining at some later date.
Which tier Starmer is seriously looking at is impossible to say at this stage – he always changes his mind. But his gift to Macron of an Arsenal shirt with the President’s name on the back with the number 25 – he’s the 25th French president – may give a clue: please join my team. In contrast, Macron gave Starmer cufflinks, suggesting that he is locked in?
