STEPHEN GLOVER: Swingeing steel tariffs and now spiteful travel restrictions. Starmer's 'reset' with Brussels is all one-way traffic
Was there ever a more tragic tale of unrequited love than the relationship between Sir Keir Starmer and Ursula von der Leyen, President of the European Commission?
Ursula has given every indication of being open to Keir’s charms, such as they are. She despised Boris. She couldn’t see the point of Rishi. But dear Sir Keir! Ursula is full of smiles whenever she sees him, and kisses him with a special warmth.
Keir is of course infatuated. Unloved in his own country, he feels appreciated in Brussels. He wants to get closer to Ursula. Or, to be more precise, he’d like to get closer to the EU, and has a generous list of prospective concessions he’s willing to make in his well-thumbed notebook.
The tragedy is that Ursula’s actions don’t match her ardour. Far from it. She wants much more from her love-struck admirer than she is prepared to offer him by way of return.
Last week the European Union threatened Britain with tariffs of up to 50 per cent on our steel exports – twice the rate President Trump has imposed. This could be fatal to our flagging steel industry since almost 80 per cent of its exports go to the EU.
It certainly wouldn’t be a friendly act to apply swingeing tariffs on what remains of the British steel industry but the message from Brussels, as conveyed by a Belgian MEP on the BBC last week, is that no exceptions can be made. Not even for dear Sir Keir.
Many of us thought we had a gold-plated trade deal with the EU that should protect us from tariffs. In any case, there was good reason to believe that they were anathema to the European Union.
After Trump announced his tariffs in April, European leaders were united in condemning the idea. President Macron called them ‘fundamentally wrong’. Spain’s prime minister, Pedro Sanchez, lambasted ‘protectionist’ tariffs, which he said were contrary to the interests of American and European consumers.
Dear Sir Keir! Ursula is full of smiles whenever she sees him, and kisses him with a special warmth, writes Stephen Glover
The tragedy is that Ursula’s actions don’t match her ardour. Far from it. She wants much more from her love-struck admirer than she is prepared to offer him by way of return, writes Glover
Evidently there has been a change of mind, and the EU is preparing to embrace measures that it previously excoriated. In fact, Brussels is planning to go much further than Trump in penalising a close ally.
It is not just the threat of tariffs that should encourage our lovelorn PM to reconsider his obsession. Yesterday the European Union introduced its new Entry/Exit digital border system (EES) that will require visitors to have their fingerprints and their photographs taken on arrival in an EU country.
Admittedly EES will inconvenience all non-EU citizens arriving in the bloc. But it will especially affect British visitors since many more of them visit the EU than do tourists from any other country. Yet no exceptions will be made.
Brussels has been typically unhelpful in not declaring which EU countries will be implementing EES first. Possibly it doesn’t know. I don’t imagine that the laid-back Italians will be very quick on the uptake.
However, the French authorities – so lackadaisical in preventing illegal immigrants from crossing the Channel despite hundreds of millions of pounds being given to Paris – may get officious when it comes to impeding law-abiding British tourists in Calais.
Rather than bearing down on blameless visitors intending to spend a week or two in Europe, shouldn’t the EU be concentrating on its still porous borders, across which tens of thousands of illegal immigrants continue to stream?
The EES won’t be the end of our tribulations. Brussels bureaucrats have also cooked up the European Travel Information and Authorisation Service (ETIAS), due to be introduced at the end of next year.
Visitors to the so-called Schengen area (the EU minus Ireland and Cyprus, plus Norway, Switzerland, Iceland and Liechtenstein) will have to make an online application and pay a 20-euro fee for a pass that will last for three years or until the expiry of your passport, whichever comes first.
It’s true that foreign visitors to the UK, including EU nationals, have to complete an online electronic authorisation form at a cost of £16. But the combined burden of EES and ETIAS is likely to be much greater.
The apparent intention of ETIAS – other than to drive millions of people mad – is to monitor tourism and business travellers. It will also enable the authorities to track down British people who exceed the current limit of visa-free travel of 90 days in 180 days – a consequence of inept Brexit negotiations.
The threat of tariffs. Restrictions on travel that will particularly affect the British. It doesn’t appear that Keir Starmer is getting an awful lot in return for his ardent wooing.
In fact, the EU wants more. Brussels has set its heart on a so-called ‘youth mobility scheme’, which would allow EU nationals between the age of 18 and 30 to live, work and study in the UK, possibly for up to four years, and young British people to do the same in Europe.
In principle it sounds an excellent idea. The trouble is that there are more than six times as many young people in the European Union as there are in Britain. In many EU countries the unemployment rate is higher than here. This country is bound to be a magnet.
At a time of growing public resentment about uncontrolled immigration, is it really a good idea to allow tens of thousands of young Europeans to come to this country, and increase the pressure on housing, the NHS and other public services?
Last year the Government thought not. It said it had ‘no plans’. But under pressure from the EU it has changed its mind. Starmer and Rachel Reeves now support a youth mobility scheme. Nick Thomas-Symonds, the minister in charge of renegotiating Britain’s relationship with the EU, is wildly in favour.
Even so, the European Commission is reportedly contemplating linking a more generous youth mobility scheme to steel tariffs. Brussels might shave a few percentage points off tariffs if we offer even more generous terms for European youth to come and live here.
This is my question. Exactly what has the Government obtained from the European Commission in the Prime Minister’s ‘reset’ with Europe? The traffic is all one way.
Labour argues that a new agricultural deal scheduled to start in early 2027 will reduce EU restrictions on food exports. But a price has been paid for that – namely the alignment of UK standards with those of the EU, which is welcomed by Brussels as it suggests that Britain is moving back into its orbit.
That is of course what Sir Keir Starmer secretly pines for. He may not mind that all the concessions are on the British side because this former arch enemy of Brexit dreams of an eventual final concession to end all concessions – our reabsorption into the EU.
Yes, for now the constant rebuffs must be hard for him to bear. Ursula takes a lot and gives little or nothing back. Tariffs are threatened. But this seemingly tragic, unrequited love could one day have a triumphant outcome for Keir.
The real tragedy may be for those of us who believe that Britain has a great future as an independent country outside the European Union, and could see it snatched away.
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