SIR Keir Starmer’s EU “surrender deal” will “open the door” to millions of new migrants, fuming MPs warned today.
Fury at the PM’s new Brexit deal hit boiling point as it emerged that Brussels has not only demanded free movement for under-35s but also wants “youth” to be able to bring their family members to live in the UK too.
European Council President Antonio Costa, Sir Keir Starmer and European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen look on during a visit aboard the British Royal Navy’s HMS Sutherland frigate as part of the UK-EU summit yesterday[/caption]
Tory leader Kemi Badenoch has blasted the new Brexit deal[/caption]
Chancellor of the Exchequer Rachel Reeves, Sir Keir Starmer, British Foreign Secretary David Lammy, UK Paymaster General Nick Thomas-Symonds meet with European counterparts to discuss the new Brexit ‘surrender deal’[/caption]
Tory Leader Kemi Badenoch blasted Sir Keir for “selling out” Britain and contradicting his pledge to reduce sky-high net migration figures.
She said: “Freedom of movement quietly returns.
“Starmer’s Youth Mobility Scheme opens the door to potentially millions of EU migrants—will they have rights to stay?
“Could they bring dependents? Will British taxpayer’s pay their uni fees?
“We closed that chapter with Brexit.
“Labour are intent on reopening it.”
Shadow Foreign Secretary Priti Patel accused Labour of “lying to the British people”.
She told Talk: “The fact that they’re saying that this is some kind of success, it’s just, it’s misleading. Its deliberate deception of the British people.
“They’ve got a Home Secretary that didn’t basically put any facts to this. It is a fact that these schemes and systems were already in place. And so I’m going to say it, they’re lying to the British people.
“Keir Starmer was too busy swigging champagne yesterday afternoon then come into parliament to explain his actions and to be scrutinised democratically by MPs and peers, which is outrageous…
“They’re pulling the wool over the eyes of the British people.”
Starmer has made Britain the EU's gimp
By Dan Hannan
WHAT a humiliation. We have given Brussels everything it wanted and ended up paying for the privilege.
Sir Keir Starmer always hated Brexit. For three years, he campaigned to overturn the referendum.
Now, unable to go back in, has agreed that Brussels should set our laws from the outside.
We will be a non-voting member, a captive market for EU exports, a supplier of fish for French and Spanish skippers, of soldiers for EU deployments, of subsidised university places for Eurocrats’ children.
Britain will become the EU’s gimp, trussed up in black leather and zips, with a ball-gag in its mouth.
And all because, since 2016, Starmer has felt a deep emotional need to apologise on behalf of the British electorate.
To see how one-sided the agreement is, let’s think of what the two sides’ objectives were before.
The EU had a long list. Since Donald Trump effectively withdrew the US security guarantee from Europe, Eurocrats have wanted Britain, a nuclear state with the most powerful Armed Forces in the region, to take up some of the slack.
They wanted continued access to the richest fishing grounds in Europe, something that was supposed to be phased out gradually after Brexit.
They wanted to send their unemployed youngsters here and to continue to educate their children at UK universities without paying overseas fees.
Above all, they wanted to control our trade policy. The UK is by far their biggest export market for foodstuffs. Their fear throughout was that Britain might lift the barriers Brussels that had put in the way of non-EU imports, usually dressed up as consumer protection measures, though in reality they are about keeping out competition.
If Britain were to follow the science and remove these barriers, it would cease to be a captive market. Beef from Australia, Uruguay, the US and Canada would replace imports from France and Ireland.
To prevent that outcome, it was not enough for Britain to adopt the same food standards as the EU. No, we had to cede control. We had to let the EU set our food standards in perpetuity.
The agreement just signed makes it impossible for British farmers to get a competitive edge in areas like gene editing. It could force us to undo the reforms we have made over the past four years and might threaten our existing trade deals.
So much for what the EU wanted. What of Britain?
Actually, our position was pretty comfortable. We already hadthe most comprehensive deal that the EU has with any state not in the process of joining it, with no tariffs or quotas. We had finally started to use our Brexit freedoms to be more competitive in fields like AI.
We had struck trade deals with the Pacific bloc, India and (much to Eurocrats’ annoyance) the US.
No, the only real irritation we had, a legacy of the Benn Surrender Act, when Europhile MPs prevented us from leaving the EU other than on terms that Brussels approved, was checks at the Irish border.
The only fair way to dismantle those checks was to agree a mutual recognition deal on food. We would accept stuff that the EU passed as fit, and they would do the same. Brussels has long had such a deal with New Zealand, and our standards are closer to its own than those of Kiwi exporters.
But mutual recognition would not keep the UK as a captive export market. So the EU held out for total control, what it called “dynamic alignment” (though few things are less dynamic than the EU).
Naturally, it has got its way. On this, as on every other issue, Labour has been reduced to pretending that, in giving in to the EU, it is somehow getting what it wanted all along.
Thus handing Brussels control of our regulations becomes “easier exports”.
Caving into EU demands on free movement becomes “a balanced youth experience scheme”. Though how anyone can justify giving EU students a better deal than Commonwealth students is utterly beyond me.
To see how totally we have caved in, consider what ministers are trumpeting as their big victory, namely the ability to use EU passport e-gates. It is extraordinary that this right was ever withdrawn. We have always allowed EU nationals to use our gates, and quite right, too: we want our airports to be efficient.
If the EU wants to treat e-gates as a bargaining chip, the bargain should be simple reciprocity: you use ours, we use yours. But, no, to get even something so basic, we make a bunch of unrelated concessions.
And to cap it all, we are paying the EU unspecified sums for accepting all these concessions.
That is what happens when our leaders can’t forgive us for Brexit. Labour negotiates, Britain loses.
This morning Labour Industry Minister Sarah Jones insisted dependents would not be allowed as part of a future “youth experience scheme” with the EU.
She told Times Radio: “You can’t bring your family, no.
“And it’s similar to, I think we have 13 other schemes, some of which were negotiated by the last government.
“It’s not uncommon to have this kind of opportunity for our kids as well to go and experience new things and new countries.
“I think most people would welcome that.”
Sir Keir’s Brexit reset deal was last night panned as a humiliating surrender — as he was accused of being done up like a kipper.
The EU ambushed the UK with a late demand for 12 more years of French and Spanish trawlers plundering our waters.
The PM caved in hook, line and stinker to ensure key Eurocrats came to his “landmark summit” in London yesterday to agree the deal.
It means young Europeans can study, work or just sightsee here via a “Youth experience scheme”, with a possible 80million eligible.
And now Brussels wants to go even further – demanding dependents are allowed in too.
Euro judges will yet again enforce reams of red tape binding our food and agriculture industry to laws over which we have no control.
The terms of the accord will add just 0.3 per cent growth in 15 years’ time — with Brexiteers slamming it as an “appalling sell-out”.
Brussels agreed to soften checks on food goods entering the bloc and stop forcing British tourists to queue for hours at borders.
Britain can also access EU defence funds and uni exchange programmes, with travelling artists to be excluded from overbearing visa restrictions.
However, it is all subject to months of talks and comes with a price tag of potentially billions.
Boris Johnson called his successor an “orange ball-chewing manacled gimp of Brussels”.
