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Dear John,
I’m trying very hard not to open by
saying “the world has changed” because it’s been said in every op-ed,
Substack, and podcast this week. But, the world really has changed.
There is only before that Oval Office moment with Zelenskyy,
and after - at least in the sense of modern
geopolitics.
It doesn’t matter whether you voted
Leave or Remain, no one predicted that we would ever be contemplating
the idea of a NATO without the United States of America. Or a United
States of America determined to destroy trading relationships, even
with Canada and Mexico, while adopting Russian foreign policy
wholesale. We are living through a paradigm shift that, in spite of
everyone talking about it constantly, hasn’t quite yet sunk in. The
magnitude of this seismic activity has not yet been fully calculated
because the main shock isn’t over yet. New horrors, such as the
threat of deporting Ukrainian
refugees from America, keep
emerging. And the aftershocks - such as the decisions (and sacrifices)
Europe will now have to make - haven’t even begun.
Britain’s decision to leave the EU,
if it looked foolhardy or arrogant before, now looks
mortal.
In the midst of some pretty mixed
domestic policy so far, Starmer’s galvanising meeting of leaders at
Lancaster House over the weekend provided some comfort. Personally I
was relieved, not just to see that the UK’s soft power is alive and
well, but that someone like Boris Johnson wasn’t currently our Prime
Minister. He has been notably silent all week. Small mercies,
perhaps.
So what should an organisation like Best for Britain, which
has been working hard to create the conditions to repair our
relationship with Europe through a deal on goods and services, do in
the midst of much graver political issues?
Some will argue that issues around
moving fruit and veg through ports, or agonising over what kind of
safety mark to put on a product, now seem trivial. But I would argue
that their triviality is exactly why we must get them out of the way
as quickly as possible, before Europe can move onto the important
issue of its continued existence. (You can read all 114 of our
recommendations - that can
be implemented without breaking anyone’s red lines - even if you hate
the idea of the red lines in the first place.) And while rejoining the
EU would likely solve all these issues, an application is likely to
fall on deaf ears at a time when Russia shows no signs of abating its
aggression near the Eastern border.
We must focus on what can be negotiated right now - that
won’t disrupt important EU-wide decisions on defence and security: a
deal that aligns the UK with the EU on goods and
services.
Better still, our own commissioned report demonstrates that such a deal can deliver up to 2.2% growth in GDP (and shields EU countries from the
effects of any US tariffs, should Trump impose them). An opportunity
we probably shouldn’t miss, given that we will (rightly) be ramping up
spending on defence. And surely preferable to cuts to welfare
spending, if rumours about the Spring Statement are to be
believed.
There are just over 70 days
until the first Starmer-Von Der Leyen Summit, where a
political declaration on the UK-EU Reset is expected. That’s ten weeks
to tell the Government that the public want a deal with Europe to fix
their lives and livelihoods before the geopolitical situation gets
worse.
In that time I, everyone here at Best for Britain, and in
fact everyone in the UK, needs your help:
We want
every MP to have seen a copy of our report on how much GDP growth can
be gained from such a deal: (Spoiler alert: it’s up to
2.2%)
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