Editorial Board
Starmer's EU Reset Is Overdue and Overly Modest
The small trade gains being sought won’t be a game changer for the UK economy. Both sides should try harder.
Is this the best they can do?
Photographer: Leon Neal/Getty Images North AmericaJudging from the reaction, you might think that UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer had just lost a war. One former cabinet minister labeled Starmer’s team a “surrender squad,” while a former prime minister called on Britons to “fight, fight and fight again for the freedoms the people voted for.”
In truth, Starmer hadn’t surrendered anything. He had merely proposed a few tweaks to the UK’s post-Brexit relationship with Europe. His so-called reset is, if anything, too modest. It risks missing an opportunity to repair Britain’s economic wounds and strengthen its ties with the enormous trading bloc next door.