When Sir Keir Starmer meets with the leader of the European Union on Monday, hopes will be high that he can finally make a dent in his ambition to reset relations with the bloc post-Brexit. In London, at least.
While the tone between the UK and EU has been notably friendlier and more cooperative since Labour took office, Brussels officials are increasingly frustrated at the UK’s reluctance to lay out in any detail what the reset means in practical terms.
And with global stability in the balance, now the anti-Europe Donald Trump has returned to the White House, EU sources fear that opening negotiations with a Britain that, in their eyes doesn’t know what it wants, will be a waste of valuable time and attention.
Groundhog Day
“There is still an amount of residual scarring from the Brexit days,” says one EU official. “So while we welcome the general improvement in tone, there is no urgency on our side to move things forward unless it is on something concrete – not just vague, aspirational reset stuff.”
Another official mockingly called Starmer’s post-Brexit plan the “hashtag reset.”
There is also understood to be frustration at the pace on the UK side, with former Labour leader Neil Kinnock telling The i Paper last week: “There is a real determination to achieve and operate a reset among several Government ministers, including at this very senior level. But getting tangible proof of occurrence has proved, thus far, to be beyond my persuasive abilities.”
Starmer’s Monday meeting, an informal gathering of the EU heads of government, institutions and the Secretary-General of Nato, is officially to discuss strengthening European security in the context of the war in Ukraine and instability in the Middle East – not Brexit.
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