How close is too close? Labour seeks good relations with EUbut also has its red lines

Keir Starmer swept to the Labour leadership as the man who put rejoining the EU on the party’s agenda in the bleak years after the Brexit vote. But as he prepares for power, the chance of a Starmer government negotiating re-entry was summed up by the Labour peer Lord Mandelson this week: “You’ve got to be joking!”

- Heather Stewart

Brexit barely figures on voters’ list of pressing concerns, with inflation and the economy at the top. But it is likely to be a recurring – and potentially fraught – feature of a Starmer premiership.

Since Rishi Sunak dialled down some of the tensions with the EU in recent months, Labour’s top team have shifted from barely mentioning Brexit to promising to make the relationship work better – starting with security, an area where Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has highlighted common interests.

Shadow foreign secretary, David Lammy, told the Munich security conference last month that Labour wanted a new security pact with the EU, which would include regular ministerial meetings to discuss issues of shared concern.

“It’s absolutely fundamental that the United Kingdom and Europe have the closest of relationships and the Brexit era is over, the situation is settled,” he said.

Starmer and Lammy have undertaken a series of EU visits in recent months, keen to create softer mood music – with the nitty-gritty detail on trade left to the shadow minister without portfolio, Nick Thomas-Symonds.

Anand Menon, the director of the thinktank UK in a Changing Europe, says this proposal for a closer security relationship should be achievable. “It is bizarre that we have far less political contact with the EU than the Chinese or the Canadians. That is just weird. So I think that’s a bit of a no-brainer,” he said.

Some Labour insiders hope regular discussions on security could embrace a broader issues such as energy, supply chains and migration.

This could allow key challenges to be tackled before a scheduled review of the trade and cooperation agreement (TCA), once seen by Labour as the moment for a reset, but now expected to be a more technical affair.