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Alistair Campbell
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Rory Stewart
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Alistair Campbell
Practical, painless, no committee required. Welcome to the Rest Is Politics Live. Here we are with me Alistair Campbell and me Rory Stewart and talking about the well, both Keir Starmer and Ursula von der Leyen used the old H word. Historic they said. The first post Brexit UK European Union summit. A lot to digest. Some bits of it actually more more covered by the agreement than I was expecting. Some of it in less detail and I think genuinely actually the Nick Thomas Simmons, the minister who's been in charge of the negotiations, and Michael Ellum, a civil servant who used to be a colleague of mine when he was Gordon Proud spokesman back in the day I think have done a Pretty good job. The trouble, of course, with anything to do with Europe is we are immediately plunged into these parallel universes. You've got the universe of the Starmer government and the European Union are trying to sort of find practical, pragmatic, technocratic solutions to an event and a deal that took 4% out of the economy. And you've got Farage, Badenoch, most of the right wing media basically saying, regardless of what was said, that this is a terrible betrayal of Brexit. I see that Boris Johnson has crawled out from under a stone today to give us his opinions. I think he could crawl back. But anyway, Roy, what did you.
Rory Stewart
Let me give it. Try to give me my sense of what was in the deal, just for people who've not been following the ins and outs. So, main thing to understand is that the Brexit vote happened in 2016. There were all these negotiations which didn't work out with Theresa May. In 2019, Boris Johnson came in and finally in December 2020, this thing called a trade and cooperation agreement was signed with the European Union and the headline was zero tariffs, zero quotas. So that means that goods can go, you know, you can sell, I don't know, a Cumbrian cuckoo clock into the European Union and you don't have to pay tariff on it when it goes in. And there's no quota, there's no limit on the number of cuckoo clocks you can sell. But because Britain had left the EU and wanted to sign trade deals with other countries, you had to fill in paperwork, paperwork, particularly on rules of origin, proving that that cuckoo clock was made in Cumbria, not made in China and just coming through Cumbria. Otherwise it'd be a way of getting around the EU barriers. And in these whole negotiations, one of the things that was a real sticking point was phytosanitary standards, which is to say, anything to do with, you know, live animals, plants and other stuff moving back and forth across the border. Had to have a lot of paperwork, a lot of vets inspecting it. And so the big first breakthrough with this deal is you can now push that stuff across the border. And of course, in exchange, Britain has to agree that it's going to remain in lockstep with the European Union's standards on these things. So the European Union can be confident that they're not putting in food that doesn't meet European Union standards. And the European Court of Justice will rule if there's some dispute about whether we're putting a little dash of chlorine on our chicken. And then the only other things that Going on is talking about carbon tax. So making sure that we unify ourselves with a European Union on carbon tax, which also means that we are not going to face potentially hundreds of millions of pounds of charges around divergence. There's been some conversation around freedom of movement for young people. Youth mobility Scheme.
Alistair Campbell
Not freedom of movement. They're emphasizing freedom of movement. Mobility. They call it youth mobility. Keir Starmer kept saying youth experience making a school visit. Yeah.
Rory Stewart
Nobility at all. And then the big losers in all of this are the fishermen, not the people exporting fish. The people exporting fish, like the Scottish Salmon association, quite happy because this deal makes it easier to sell seafood into the European Union. But the fishermen who'd hoped that they would be able to catch more fish off UK waters and exclude European Union boats from fishing in European waters were disappointed in 2016, disappointed in 2019, disappointed in 2020, and are really disappointed now because basically till 2038, the European Union basically continues to have almost the same access British waters that existed before Brexit. Have I got it?
Alistair Campbell
Yeah, yeah, I think there's a few. There's a few other bits and bobs you can go through. But just. Just first on the fishing, because this. This goes to the heart of the. Of the politics. I was in Scotland over the weekend, and because Fiona and I wanted to swim in Ullswater Roy, we stopped near Pooley Bridge, scene of one of your very good communications. Very good communications triumphs, where you ended up at the wrong end of the bridge.
Rory Stewart
That's right. That's the one.
Alistair Campbell
We don't need to tell that story. Anyway, so coming back today by car means that I've done nothing but listen to different news stations covering this. And virtually every single interview was about until the deal was done. When it sort of broadened up. It was basically about phishing and about the theme of betrayal more generally, and the reason for that. And this is what just gets my goat about the way that our media political ecosystem works. It's almost a decade now since we've left, since the referendum, rather. And it was like going back in time. Nigel Farage, before seeing a word says, if I'm your Prime Minister, I'll be reversing every last dot and comma of this. Kemi Badenoch, at least, sort of waited to hear what was. Might be in it before coming out to say she's gobsmacked at this terrible betrayal. And even you, Rory, even you. There, you said. You said big losers. Okay, okay. One of the interview, One of the interviews I heard so Farage comes on and says this spells the end of the UK fishing industry. @ which point I think it was LBC News interviewed a very calm, measured guy called Mike Cohen from UK Fisheries, who, yes, wasn't very happy about some of the arrangements. I'll tell you what he wasn't particularly happy about in a minute, but actually said in answer to the question, well, is Nigel Farage right, that this is the end of the UK fishing? And he said, no, he's not. Because actually this just extends the deal that we've got now. Okay.
Rory Stewart
It doesn't make it any worse. It leaves the status quo. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Alistair Campbell
Added to which, one thing which I didn't hear until I actually read the agreement was the fact that the government is putting in. I can't remember the sum, but it's some. It's a sort of three figure million. So 200, 300, whatever it was, million into coastal towns to help sort of, you know, develop. I think the way they put it was to give fishing communities the opportunity to exploit this new, this new arrangement. But the other thing that I think.
Rory Stewart
Is worth just pointing out, sorry, exploit the existing arrangements. As he pedantically, they haven't really changed the arrangement about how much they can.
Alistair Campbell
Well, no, but exploit the fund. Exploit the fund that they're giving within the context of this arrangement. But just, just one thing. And the guy, Mike Cohen, he was very at pains to point out because the interview was saying, yeah, but hold on a minute, okay, you're not 100% happy, but the government has to look at the bigger picture. And food and farm exports are much, much bigger now. I just went to have a look at it. So the fishing industry in total, in total. I'm not minimizing fishing, it's a really tough industry in my view, but it's worth about a billion. Okay. The whole thing, food and farm exports, which are covered by this bigger deal that you've talked about, are worth exports to the European Union alone worth 10 times more than that. So the government does have to. And that's clearly where the deal has been done instead of. And Keir Starmer tried basically to say that the reason why 12 years is better than one is because it gives people stability and so forth. So I think fishing is significant, but I'm not convinced that it's, as it were, the most important deal for Farage makes it that, or tries to make it that because he thinks that's the best way to sort of wave the patriotic flag. The biggest betrayal of fishermen came with Brexit itself. And that's why Johnson and Farage and their expectations.
Rory Stewart
Yeah, they believed that somehow they would be able to get control of the UK waters, which they.
Alistair Campbell
Instead of which they've lost 30% of their trade since Brexit.
Rory Stewart
The big picture also that I was looking at is this question. As we get closer to the European Union, closer to a sort of customs union arrangement, people will begin to point out that this constrains the kind of trade deals we can do with other countries. So one example might be if we sign up to not chlorinating our chicken, we can't really sign a deal with a country that's trying to sell us chlorinated chicken because we're now governed by European Union food standards. But I was looking at the figures, comparing this great, much touted India deal with the EU deal and here are some figures for you. So our exports to the EU are about 42% of our goods experts to India, 2%.
Alistair Campbell
Yeah.
Rory Stewart
Services about 125 billion to the EU, to India. 5 tariffs with the EU, 0 tariffs with India. Well, cars about 60%. Whiskey, about 150% savings from rejoining the European Customs Union, in addition to what we've got now would be about 7 billion pounds a year. The trade deal with India is about 0.7 billion. In other words, one tenth of that. And we've lost about 27 billion pounds of trade with Europe. And of course, the background of this also is that there's been a very big shift in views on Brexit. Only 30% of people in the latest YouGov poll now think that it was the right thing to do to vote to leave the European Union.
Alistair Campbell
That's what's so crazy about the debate. So the, you know, and as you know, Roy, my big complaint about the broadcast is always the way they take their agenda from the, from the media and from a very small number of very right wing politicians like Farage and now Badenoch, who's sort of trying to fight him on the same ground. To my mind, if you were genuinely reflecting public opinion, that sense of where the debate has shifted would be much, much more a bigger part of the narrative. But it's not to be fair. I thought at the press conference, it was really interesting. I listened to the whole press conference on the radio and so Keir Starmuth, you had Ursula von der Leyen, Antonio Costa, the. So the two European Union leaders and, and Keir Starmer and they, they had sort of, you know, a few UK journalists and then a few non uk, European. And it was again, back to this parallel universe. So Chris Mason's was the first question, you know, fisherman betrayal, to be fair to Robert Peston, rest his money colleague, I thought he asked a really interesting question because he basically said to Keir Starmer, is there not a danger you're getting the worst of all worlds? You're upsetting people who are still committed to Brexit by making clear that you're unpicking parts of it, but you're not going anywhere near to filling the gap with the damage, the economic damage that Brexit's done. And I just feel the one bit I think is missing from the Labour government politics on this is actually the constant calling out of the people who did the damage. Nigel Ferrars shouldn't be allowed to go into a studio without being really pinned on his role. The promises he made. And it's so easy now for him to say, oh, well, if I'd been in charge, it would have been a very different sort of Brexit. They all say that, because the truth is, they didn't have a clue what Brexit was going to be. So I actually, as you know. So Fiona was in the car. And one of the things you have to understand about Fiona is that when I'm trying to listen to something like a press conference on the radio really carefully, because I'm going to talk to Rory Stewart about it in a couple of hours time, this constant commentary, she was coming at it. Absolutely, from the perspective of this doesn't go nearly far enough.
Rory Stewart
Well, let me try.
Alistair Campbell
And there's a lot of that. There's a lot of that.
Rory Stewart
Well, I agree with Fiona on this and I take it further because I think the fault is partly with Britain, but it's also with the European Union. And what I mean by this is that I think there was a real opportunity to take these concrete steps. And in the end, in the end, the big historical picture, these are kind of minor tinkerings. Their improvements no doubt makes it better, but they're still minor tinkerings within a complicated trade deal. And a sense. I talked to Anand Menon, our friend, who said that it's just a kind of reminder that Brexit's never a done event. It's a process that's just going to go on every year for the rest of our lives as you keep kind of tinkering these deals back and forth. So I would have thought the really big opportunity would have been to take a step back and say, we're in a completely New world. We're in the world of Trump. Look what's happened to Carney, look what's happening in Ukraine, look what's happening with tariffs, look what's happening with Russia. And we, Starmer, Macron, Metz and the European Union. We have a much, much bigger vision of where we're going and we're going to set some concrete steps. And this is the first step in that narrative. And you would connect it to an economic story, you'd connect it to a defense story, you'd connect it to a democracy story, et cetera. And that's what I think is really sad here. What we really want is, is some courage and people to say, here are concrete steps, here are milestones. We're not going to be sort of fuzzy, but let's return to some of the really bold ideas. How about the Balkans, countries in the Balkans joining the single market. How about thinking about putting a UK Canadian, Turkish forces forward in Estonia? We've got some British forces there, but why not big permanent plan for to defend the Baltic? Why don't we really come up with a really interesting idea around illegal migration? So get into that in the main pod when we talk about Germany's policies. But I think there was an opportunity here, if Europe had been imaginative, to actually solve the issue of the small boats crossings across the Channel as part of this deal.
Alistair Campbell
Well, I think on that, I'll tell you what I was expecting when this was the sort of build up to this, because you really have the three areas, you have the sort of the general strategic approach and the partnership. And there was a lot of talk of that and that is interesting and the mood music on that is good and that's fine. Then you had the trade and corporation and the changes which once you've ruled out single market, customs, union, then you are inevitably, as you say, talking about fairly major tinkering, but ultimately you're not changing the fundament. And then the third area, which I was expecting more, was in relation to defence and security, because what you've got now is clearly ongoing, the process by which Britain can be involved in this European Union, this big fund, 150 billion euro fund that they've set up. They're clearly desperate for the UK to be involved to a greater extent in relation to Ukraine. But again, I think the politics impinge on this and politics without rebuttal. So again, on another, I had a weekend basically going to different Scottish football matches and on the way to one of them again, Nigel Farage, who basically, I think he lives inside, he And Tice live in the BBC headquarters. And he was on another interview where he was essentially saying, well, part of the great betrayal, the great sellout, we're clearly going to be sending British soldiers to fight under a European flag. Okay. I mean absolute fucking nonsense. Right? But where. You are absolutely right. He's allowed to say that and feel confident that that helps his political project because he isn't being put back in his box in relation to just how ridiculous a thing that is to say. The fact is that European security has changed because of Ukraine, is continuing to change because of Trump and the European governments, including the UK have to adapt to that. And so where I'm completely with you, I overall thought they've done a pretty good job in the. This. I really do. Both sides, pretty good job. But I was, I was expecting more in relation to defense.
Rory Stewart
But I think, I think this isn't. I mean, I think you. I think we can believe both things. I think we can think Nick Timothy Simmons did a really good job. But in the end, as you said at the beginning, this is.
Alistair Campbell
I think we can even. I think Nick, Nick Timothy Simmons would be a love child involving Nick Timothy the Tory MP and somebody called Sims. I think you mean Nick Thomas Simmons.
Rory Stewart
But anyway, Nick Thomas. I'm so sorry. I'm so weird. Sorry. I don't know what I was talking about.
Alistair Campbell
That was a bit weird.
Rory Stewart
Yeah, that was a bit weird. That was the kind of sort of strange thing going on in my head there. I was distracted by my children coming. Listen, I think the team did a really good technocratic job, as you said at the beginning. But there is still a big mystery why this new age of Trump hasn't yet got these European leaders stepping up and saying, okay, we are going to think about what the global trading system can be in an age of Trump. What is a rules based international order, to use that kind of jargon, but more obvious things. We just interviewed Milan. If we're going to be serious about climate policy, we've got to do it with the whole of Europe together. No point Britain doing it on its own. The only hope is to do it with Europe. If we're going to be serious about AI, no point Britain doing it on its own. We've got to really think about because the money involved in these things. I mean in, in climate, it's that we need to get 15% of global emissions, not 2% of global emissions if we're going to make it different. And in AI, it's because it's going to take Hundreds of billions and immense investment to get this off the ground. And we've got a huge opportunity also just to finish a little bit of the puzzle in getting the financial markets from Britain connected again with European financial markets. Because in order, my friend Enrico Letter, who I keep trying to sell to you, the future former Italian Prime Minister, who I'm hoping one day we can interview, has been going around saying that what we need if we're going to get defence going in Europe is the city of London, that they need to get financial passporting going again. They need to make easier relationships with Britain if they're simply to get the funds together to get EU defence off the ground.
Alistair Campbell
Yeah. One of the things that seems to have been agreed, Roy, which I think would be of particular interest to you, was the use of E gates at more European airports. I think I told you. I can't remember if I told our listeners about what I did at Lisbon airport last year.
Rory Stewart
You did tell us that was. I was very lucky not to be with you. That sounded very embarrassing moment.
Alistair Campbell
Yeah. Just to remind.
Rory Stewart
He stood up after he'd been queuing for an hour and started shouting at the entire crowd. How many of you voted for Brexit?
Alistair Campbell
And nobody, not one person, admitted it? Not one, no. So I think there's that. And then I think the. The other. I think the somebody. Funny if I got a message from. From somebody, the new European, if I was Matt Kelly, the editor in the European, he said some of this feels small, but the vibe shift feels really big. And I think that's quite an interesting way to look at it, that this was a. And that. That said to me that there was quite a lot of confidence in the way that Keir Starmer was sort of projecting it. It's never ever going to be enough for people like Fiona and me who just think this has been the biggest. I call it Nash now. National act of self Harm. N A S H And. And. But this. But I think if you're less than a year in to your. Hopefully the first of a few terms in government, it's a pretty good first start. And then, of course, you know, once you get used to the idea that this is now part of the calendar, there's an annual us, an annual EU UK summit then. And I think the other thing, I spoke to somebody in the Trump administration last week who basically was saying the point you made earlier, they don't. They. They actually think it's in their interest as well for Britain to have a pretty good relationship with European Union, admittedly this guy was on the. On the civil service side, as it were, rather than one of the kind of maga. Maga politicians. So, yeah, I, I think there's, there's. I think it was a pretty good first start. But the front pages of the right wing. The front page of the right wing ranks tomorrow are going to be something to be seen.
Rory Stewart
Two quick, just bring the comments and we've got a few more minutes to go. Rhinonymous. That's a great name. Always agreed with Campbell. But I do think Farage sits in his head a bit too much. I did think that a little bit, actually, when you were. You were sort of giving the vision when, when you. I was a bit worried that. I think that's what Ranonymous was coming from. Look, when you. You were moving on to say that Farage was camping in the BBC studios, but I did worry a bit that he was camping in your head. No, One time.
Alistair Campbell
Sorry, can I. Am I allowed to. Am I allowed to respond to that? Yeah, because the reason is. I'll tell you why. So, not that he's sitting in my head, but I think one of the reasons he's got himself to the place where he now is is because the media treat him like a commentator, not a politician. And the two main parties have not gone after him as though he were. They keep saying he's a serious threat, but they don't treat him like one. So it's not that Rhinoceros, whatever your name was, Rhinomus, that he lives in my head, but I think he needs to live in the head of Labour and Tory strategies a bit more than he does, and they need to be more effective about dealing with them. Sorry, beg your pardon.
Rory Stewart
Okay, very good, very good. One Time Pad. There's no collective strategic vision for us as Europeans. The EU needs to do a big piece on setting its aims and objectives. Maybe it's too difficult with divergent member states, but can I have a go at your friend Macron here? Inspired by one time Pad. Have you followed this absolute nonsense that he's doing about a European political community? So he's envisaged this sort of association of democracies, which doesn't include Russia and Belarus. And he's completely failed to notice that he's actually already got one of those things sitting in Strasbourg, called the Council of Europe, within his own country. So instead of leaning into an entire institution that already exists, making something of it, you know, let's say a big meeting every six months of the heads of the Council of Europe, he's trying to then in Tirana set up some whole new body which has no secretariat, no agenda, no direction.
Alistair Campbell
No, no. Okay. I think, I think, look, the European political community, as I see it, was a. And you're right that Russia and Belarus are excluded because I think. I think it was motivated by two things. One is Ukraine bring together show the size of the European family that is on the Ukrainian side against Russia. And the other thing was Brexit. I think this is a way of involving the uk. And there was Keir Starmer in Tirana, but so was Erdogan.
Rory Stewart
So it's exactly, exactly the same as the Council of Europe. I mean, country by country, but the Council of Europe. There's no Secretariat.
Alistair Campbell
Specifically, I did have a chat with because as you say, it was in Albania and Adi Rama did a bloody good. Albania did a bloody good job of putting it on him. It looked amazing. And I think that, yeah, I think they probably all agreed it could do more direction, but I don't see it as a complete mirror. And by the way, we have been saying, Rory, that new institutions are going to develop in this sort of new world. One thing we haven't mentioned, Nathan Townsend there has a question. Where do you think youth mobility ends up again? That was something that I think was a little bit unclear. They wanted to. The Europeans wanted to talk about, you know, and Ursula von der Leyen was talking about when she studied in London. It was all very romantic. Keir wanted to sort of emphasize putting a cap on it and duration and visas and so that's one where I think they're still working out. To me, that is a no brainer. Absolutely.
Rory Stewart
Why is Starmer worried about that one? It's a very. I still can't quite understand. It seems the most innocent world. What is it? European Union students come over for two years. Ursula van der Leyen has a lovely time studying and she goes back again. What's.
Alistair Campbell
What's the problem, I wonder? Maybe, maybe Farage is hovering close to his head. It's part. Listen, this is, this is what I really think they need. I'll tell you that. One thing I'd say about Back to Albania, Eddie Rama. For a tiny country like that to put on the. The show that they did for this EPC summit and all the leaders were there and it was extraordinary. I sent you the. The AI thing they did where they did these. These little AIs of all the leaders as children saying welcome to Albania. And it was really funny. And then. And you know the thing about. He designs his own Wallpaper and it was all over the place. It looked great, it was really creative. But what it said to me was he's got real confidence. Right. And I just think that I thought Keir's confidence projection was okay today, better than usual. But I think on stuff like that, sees it. What is the big. What is the big deal with against youth mobility?
Rory Stewart
Sees it because it was actually I would have said I don't know what this is. Maybe this is. I don't understand stuff at all. But I would have thought there would be an instinct to say this is the perfect gift if you've got a much bigger strategic vision, 10 year vision about defense, AI, climate, free trade, rules based international order, migration, UNHCR. Use this as a symbol of how you're getting there and then set another milestone in two years time and just get that sense that we're all going.
Alistair Campbell
Yeah, yeah, no, I, Anyway, listen, I, I think it was. I'm, I'm a bit happier today than I was yesterday and I, and I thought that Farage and, and Badenoch were, I thought pretty, I thought their responses were pretty desperate. They were both pre scripted which is never a good sign. Always try and work out what is actually the substance and then, you know, attack. It was opposed to actually, you know, from the word go. We're going to. We're going to. We're going to. We're going to go for it. Go. We're getting a lot of comments, aren't we?
Rory Stewart
We're getting a lot of comments and some. Well, let's take one last one and then we've got to. We're going to have to go.
Alistair Campbell
But yeah, we're going to have to record our main episode, aren't we? By the way, I should explain to our listeners and viewers the reason we were going to Rory and I. Our diaries are a bit, sort of a bit clogged up this week. So we're recording the main podcast and the Q and A today but we thought there's a danger that, you know, on this one in particular we've kind of felt we had to do it today. That's why I've done it as a live. So we'll put it out to everybody tomorrow but then we'll have the main podcast Wednesday and then can we finish.
Rory Stewart
Then, Alistair, with a quick crisp response to you to Darren Small. Darren Small. I just wish Starmer would knock it off with a MAGA Lite policies on government efficiency and immigration. We'll never go far enough to please the far right and we'll lose the liberal left. Not a good look.
Alistair Campbell
Yeah, you said. Yeah, yeah, okay. Yeah. And somebody, by the way, John Ferris has just pointed out that Alistair was very well behaved in Lincoln. Didn't have a pop at him. That's Farage. I went at him over substance, Rory. And that is what we need, more of that. All right, guys, thank you for tuning in. We said maximum half an hour. We've done half an hour. Lots of you tuned in. Lots of yes questions. Sorry we couldn't answer them all. Thank you and see you soon.
Rory Stewart
Thanks again. Bye bye. See you soon.
Alistair Campbell
Right, well done, everybody who's still listening because that means you've listened right to the end of the episode. Thank you. Very impressive. But can I ask you something? Did you hear an advert on today's episode and did you think, you know what? I'm sure the listeners would rather hear about my brand rather than all these other things they're promoting. Well, you could be right, but there's only one way to find out.
Rory Stewart
That's right. You could be the next NordVPN or BetterHelp. Put your brand in front of millions of like minded listeners by advertising on the rest is Politics and other shows across the Goal Hanger network. So who a Goal Hanger? Well, they're the company behind this very show. And if you're in the market to increase the value of your brand, they want to hear from you. You can register your or your company's interest by going to goalhanger.com right now. That's goal H-A-N-G-E-R.com see you there.
Podcast Summary: The Rest Is Politics - Episode 405: Starmer's EU Deal: A New Era
Introduction
In Episode 405 of The Rest Is Politics, hosts Alastair Campbell and Rory Stewart delve deep into the recent developments surrounding Keir Starmer's European Union (EU) deal. Released on May 19, 2025, this episode provides an incisive analysis of the post-Brexit landscape, examining the implications of the new agreement between the UK and the EU. Campbell and Stewart navigate through the complex negotiations, political reactions, and future prospects, offering listeners a comprehensive understanding of this pivotal moment in British and European politics.
1. Overview of Starmer's EU Deal
The episode opens with Campbell highlighting the significance of the recent EU summit, the first major meeting post-Brexit. He notes the cautious optimism surrounding the agreement, acknowledging that while some aspects exceeded expectations, others fell short.
Alastair Campbell (03:00): "Some bits of it actually are more covered by the agreement than I was expecting. Some of it in less detail, and I think genuinely actually Nick Thomas Simmons, the minister in charge of the negotiations, and Michael Ellum, a civil servant, have done a pretty good job."
Rory Stewart expands on the historical context, tracing the Brexit journey from the 2016 referendum through the tumultuous negotiations leading to the 2020 Trade and Cooperation Agreement (TCA).
Rory Stewart (03:23): "The Brexit vote happened in 2016... In December 2020, a trade and cooperation agreement was signed with the European Union with the headline being zero tariffs, zero quotas."
2. Key Provisions of the Deal
The hosts break down the main components of the EU deal, emphasizing the removal of tariffs and quotas on goods, which facilitates smoother trade between the UK and the EU.
Rory Stewart (03:50): "Zero tariffs, zero quotas. So goods can go, you can sell a Cumbrian cuckoo clock into the European Union without paying tariffs or worrying about quotas."
However, they also highlight the increased bureaucratic requirements, such as stringent rules of origin to prevent circumvention of EU barriers.
Rory Stewart (04:20): "Britain has to agree to remain in lockstep with the European Union's standards on phytosanitary measures... ensuring that the EU can be confident about the quality and safety of imports."
3. Impact on the Fishing Industry
A significant portion of the discussion centers on the fishing sector, a contentious issue since Brexit. Campbell expresses skepticism about the deal's benefits for UK fishermen, pointing out that EU access to UK waters remains largely unchanged until 2038.
Alastair Campbell (05:00): "The fishermen who'd hoped to catch more fish off UK waters and exclude EU boats are disappointed because the EU continues to have almost the same access as before Brexit."
Rory concurs, noting that while the status quo is maintained, it doesn't fulfill the long-held promises of Brexit advocates like Nigel Farage.
Rory Stewart (05:30): "They believed they would gain control of UK waters, but instead, they've lost 30% of their trade since Brexit."
4. Trade Agreements and Economic Implications
The conversation shifts to broader economic impacts, comparing the EU deal with other trade agreements, particularly with India. Stewart provides a quantitative analysis, illustrating that UK exports to the EU far surpass those to India.
Rory Stewart (10:00): "Our exports to the EU are about 42% of our goods exports to India, compared to only 2% for India. In services, it's £125 billion to the EU versus £5 billion to India."
Campbell underscores the economic rationale behind prioritizing the EU, despite political criticisms.
Alastair Campbell (09:00): "Food and farm exports to the EU are worth ten times more than exports to India, justifying the focus on the EU deal despite its shortcomings in specific sectors like fishing."
5. Youth Mobility Scheme
A contentious issue within the deal is the Youth Mobility Scheme, which aims to allow young people to move between the UK and the EU for work and study. Campbell and Stewart discuss the mixed reactions, with some viewing it as a positive step towards re-establishing people-to-people links, while others criticize it as insufficient.
Alastair Campbell (05:41): "Keir Starmer kept emphasizing youth mobility experience, making it a focal point of the agreement."
Rory Stewart (26:15): "It seems the most innocent part of the deal, yet there's confusion and opposition, possibly influenced by figures like Farage."
6. Political Reactions and Media Coverage
The hosts critique the polarized media landscape and political rhetoric surrounding the deal. They argue that right-wing commentators like Nigel Farage have unfairly portrayed the agreement as a betrayal of Brexit ideals, despite evidence to the contrary.
Alastair Campbell (07:00): "Nigel Farage claims this spells the end of the UK fishing industry, but industry voices like Mike Cohen from UK Fisheries disagree, stating it merely extends the current arrangement."
The discussion highlights a disconnect between public opinion and media narratives, with only 30% of people in a recent YouGov poll believing that leaving the EU was the right decision.
Rory Stewart (11:20): "Only 30% now think it was the right move to leave the EU, yet the media continues to amplify the voices of a dissatisfied minority."
7. Defense and Security Considerations
Campbell and Stewart express disappointment over the deal's lack of substantial progress in defense and security cooperation. They expected more concrete measures to strengthen the UK's role in European defense initiatives, especially in light of global shifts such as the rise of Trump and the Ukraine conflict.
Rory Stewart (16:35): "There was an opportunity to set a bigger vision encompassing defense, AI, climate, and free trade, but the deal remains a series of minor adjustments."
Alastair Campbell (18:44): "The deal touched on defense funding with the EU's €150 billion fund, but expected more robust commitments and strategic planning."
8. Future Outlook and Conclusion
In wrapping up, Campbell and Stewart reflect on the deal's long-term implications, acknowledging it as a pragmatic step forward while recognizing the ongoing challenges and need for continuous negotiation.
Rory Stewart (20:45): "Brexit isn't a one-time event but a continuous process requiring yearly adjustments and strategic vision."
Alastair Campbell (22:49): "It's a good first start for Starmer's government, but the right-wing media remains poised to criticize future developments."
The episode concludes with a call for constructive political discourse and strategic foresight to navigate the evolving UK-EU relationship effectively.
Notable Quotes
Conclusion
Episode 405 of The Rest Is Politics offers a thorough examination of Keir Starmer's EU deal, balancing optimism with critical analysis. Alastair Campbell and Rory Stewart provide listeners with a nuanced perspective on the agreement's economic benefits, political ramifications, and areas needing improvement. Their insightful dialogue underscores the complexity of post-Brexit negotiations and the enduring impact on the UK's relationship with the EU.