This article was first published on Kirsty Hughes’s substack at https://kirstyhughes.substack.com/p/the-eu-the-uk-and-scotland-what-now, 20 July 2024.
By Kirsty Hughes
Keir Starmer greeted leaders from across the EU and beyond, on Thursday, at the European Political Community summit at Blenheim Palace. It made a good piece of political theatre. And it was certainly a very useful diplomatic and political kick-start to the new UK government’s European networking at the highest political level.
On the same day, Ursula von der Leyen got a decent majority vote in the European Parliament ensuring her second term as Commission president goes ahead. Earlier in the week, the new EU relations minister, Nick Thomas-Symonds was in Brussels meeting Commission vice-president, Maros Sefcovic.
Creating strong, constructive relations with the EU and its member states is a welcome sight after the Tories’ destructive chaos of Brexit, including the damage to the UK’s international reputation and influence.
But how much difference is it going to make to the reality of the UK’s position fully outside the EU? And does Scotland get any say in how this all unfolds?
Hard Brexit or Softening Brexit?
Keir Starmer has adopted the Tories’ main red lines on Brexit: no rejoining of the EU nor its single market or customs union and no return to free movement of people. So, there are tough limits to how EU-UK relations may evolve and the benefits that might accrue given a more positive political relationship.
Yet, it would be unwise to dismiss the serious political change in the relationship that we already see taking place. Both EU leaders and much of the European media, in commenting on the Blenheim summit, welcomed Keir Starmer as a new leader who is sincere in wanting closer cooperation between the UK and EU, and one who genuinely underlined his support for the European Convention on Human Rights. In comparison to the succession of Tory prime ministers driving through a chaotic, hard Brexit and with frequent suggestions of leaving the ECHR, this sets the scene for a substantially better relationship.
Labour was clear in the general election campaign that it wanted a broader, deeper security partnership with the EU – one that may include climate change too. And there are positive EU noises on this and, too, on the idea of an EU-UK summit meeting, perhaps in early 2025 (once the new Commission is in place).
Brussels is very good at creating high-level summits and strategic partnerships with other significant countries including the US, Japan, India and South Africa. But part of the reason this is relatively straightforward is that such summits do not mean any new treaty relationships – whether a trade deal or a membership application for instance.
This, then, is positive for EU-UK relations. But it’s not, as such, an unwinding of Brexit, even if it’s the start of some genuinely substantive and deeper security cooperation. EU relations minister Nick Thomas-Symonds told the Financial Times this week that he wanted to see much more EU-UK structured dialogue between both politicians and officials. This may sound unexciting. But one of the damaging impacts of Brexit has been the shredding of what used to be intense and diverse interactions between the UK and other EU member states. Repairing even some of that is again positive – creating networks, depth of contacts and understanding of each other’s concerns.
It’s also worth noting that in talking the language of closer European and EU cooperation from the start, the new UK government is sending a message to the public as well. Starmer’s message is that his government is sticking to Brexit but it is dumping the periodically acrimonious and rivalrous language of the Tories throughout the Brexit years. The EU and its states are the UK’s friends and partners. That should be obvious but after eight damaging Brexit years it hasn’t been.
So, what we’ve seen in the first two weeks of the Starmer government is an active, positive political diplomacy towards the EU and its member states. This is necessary, even within Starmer’s restricted limits. To establish some sort of EU-UK security pact, or negotiate a veterinary agreement or other specific elements where Brexit can be eased without crossing Starmer’s hard Brexit red lines, does require the re-establishment of trust, and good, cooperative relations.
What about the UK and Scotland’s pro-EU majority?
The irony in all this is obvious. A majority across the UK now regret Brexit. Businesses, as Nick Thomas-Symonds underlined in his FT interview, want fewer trade barriers. And Scotland and Northern Ireland have been consistently against Brexit since the 2016 referendum. Yet, we now have a UK prime minister who recognises the importance of the EU to the UK (the EU accounted for 41% of UK exports and 52% of imports in 2023), is making developing stronger EU-UK relations, including a security pact, a priority, yet will not address the elephant in the room of why re-join is not on the table, at least at some point in the future.
Starmer and his colleagues will continue refusing to countenance rejoining the EU, its single market or customs union. But the very fact of building a closer relationship with the EU is likely, over time, to increase understanding of why fewer barriers between the EU and UK is positive, not least in a turbulent world (one where Donald Trump could be US president in six months).
And so, the debate over re-joining the EU will not disappear. In fact, the debate is more likely to get stronger and louder, the more successful the Labour government is in narrowing some of the post-Brexit divisions between the EU and UK.
Where does this leave Scotland and the argument for independence in the EU? For all the claims of putting Scotland at the heart of a Labour government, there’s no obvious, active role for Scotland in much of this EU diplomacy from the UK government. A veterinary deal will help Scottish exporters. Any progress on at least some form of youth mobility between the EU and UK will be positive too. But the overall strategy is one where Scotland’s pro-EU views have no real purchase on the new UK government’s EU strategy.
For the SNP and the wider independence movement, this leaves clear blue water between them and Labour around re-joining the EU. If the UK is not going to re-join in the next one or two decades, then independence in the EU will remain the only feasible route to re-joining.
That takes us back to all the arguments around an independent Scotland having an open border with the EU but a harder border with England and Wales. Some of those arguments become a little easier if Brexit has softened a bit through a veterinary deal or mutual recognition of professional qualifications. But the pros and cons of independence in the EU while the rest of the UK is on the outside will return, even as EU-UK relations become warmer.
And, as poll after poll shows, younger voters are much stronger supporters both of independence and of EU membership than older voters. And Labour cannot win in 2026, or in 2029, if it speaks only to older voters.
There are many other important and difficult challenges out there than only EU-UK relations for both the UK and Scottish governments. But EU-UK relations are changing. And the UK and Scottish debates around the EU will change too. That opens up opportunities and challenges for those who would like to see both the UK and Scotland back in the EU sooner rather than later.
The European Movement in Scotland is committed to promoting the essential European value of free speech. Consequently, we regularly publish articles by leading academics, journalists and others discussing issues germane to Scotland’s place in Europe. Such articles do not necessarily reflect the views of the European Movement in Scotland.
