Keir Starmer’s pick-and-choose Brexit deal faces uphill battle

LONDON — Keir Starmer wants to strike a pick-and-choose deal for access to the EU single market. But he faces an uphill battle convincing Brussels.

With his government struggling in the polls, the British prime minister is doubling down on one policy area that’s going down fairly well: his Brexit reset.

Buoyed by a largely drama-free political reception to rapprochement with Brussels, Starmer wants to take the U.K. further into the bloc’s single market — but only the bits that suit him.

Under his plan the U.K. would align with EU rules in select sectors, easing trade, while staying out of the rest.

EU officials aren’t ruling anything out. But they’re not exactly jumping at the idea either — wary of previous British attempts to “cherry pick” the benefits of the EU while shirking the obligations of membership.

“You cannot just integrate with the bits of the EU that you choose. You have to agree a package,” one EU official, like others in the piece granted anonymity to speak candidly, told POLITICO.

A second EU official said it is important that the reset process is “not a cherry picking exercise.”

But the first official quoted above said Starmer’s proposals would be looked at, should he choose to flesh them out with specifics at a planned U.K.-EU summit set for later in the year.

“This push to expand negotiations is very much coming from the U.K. side,” the official said.

“They can make proposals and these would have to be looked at at the summit. It’s hard to say how this will evolve.”

Cherry picking

The inspiration for Starmer’s plan is simple: the U.K.’s experience with his Brexit reset so far.

Despite being told by Brussels for a decade that “cherry-picking” attractive bits of EU integration was not allowed, at a meeting last year London was essentially allowed to do exactly that.

Some EU member states have taken a tougher line in dealing with Brexit Britain than others. | John Thys/AFP via Getty Images

An SPS veterinary deal agreed in principle at the 2025 summit will effectively put the U.K. back in the single market for food and agriculture. A cross-border electricity trading pact, also currently under negotiation, does the same for power.

This feat was achieved without signing up to the EU’s “four freedoms” — which include the free movement of people, a political hot potato in Brexit Britain and a red line in Starmer’s 2024 Labour manifesto.

How did he pull it off?

In both cases, EU businesses were just as keen as U.K. ones to welcome the U.K. back, because firms on both sides of the channel stood to benefit from freer trade and British alignment.

But the big question is how many more of these mutually beneficial sectors there actually are, particularly when taking into account EU member countries’ varying interests. Some EU firms have benefited from the U.K. being disadvantaged in continental markets, stepping in to take their business.

Starmer is yet to say which sectors the U.K. wants to align in — though one senior EU business representative told POLITICO they expected chemicals, cosmetics and medical devices to be discussed. Another possibility sometimes named by trade experts is the automotive sector, which has cross-channel supply chains.

“As long as we’re identifying areas of mutual benefit, I think there’s a way to go ahead,” said one EU diplomat from a country usually sympathetic to the U.K.

“But if it becomes too much of a Swiss cheese version of EU membership, someone will start raising objections,” the diplomat said, referring to Geneva’s approach to the bloc. “And we can all imagine who will be the first to do so.”

Some EU member states, notably France, have taken a tougher line in dealing with Brexit Britain than others.

Even in cases where U.K. participation has been agreed as fine in principle, it can sometimes be blocked in practice by making difficult-to-meet demands of London: usually financial.

A plan for the U.K. to join the first phase of the EU’s SAFE rearmament loan scheme was entirely scuppered by an insistence that London pay billions of euros to participate. Talks ended without agreement by mutual consent.

Running out of road

There may also be trouble already on other files.

Already, EU capitals have attached new conditions to the electricity trading deal conceived at last year’s summit, setting a new requirement that Britain pay into EU “cohesion” funds in exchange for access. Whether the two sides can agree a number remains to be seen.

For these reasons, some observers are skeptical Starmer’s pick ‘n’ mix approach can be taken much further.

“We’re kind of running out of the approach of ‘what more could we get through little bits of single market access,’” David Henig, U.K. director of the European Centre for International Political Economy (ECIPE), told a seminar at the University of Sussex earlier this month.

“In order for the U.K. to substantively move on beyond the current negotiating agenda, it will need to make a much bigger leap, rub out some of those red lines, and start being prepared to talk about substantial financial contributions, movement of people, and more generally, about being partners with Europe,” Henig added.