Meeting at James Bond Castle - Scholz to Starmer: Is the Chancellor drawing the Britonsback to Europe?
It is the international baptism by fire for Keir Starmer: The new British Prime Minister must host a type of Europe Party on Thursday. A party he wasn't even invited to. But at least it's at an iconic location.
At Blenheim Castle, one of England's most famous castles, birthplace of Winston Churchill and popular film set ("Harry Potter", "James Bond", "Mission: Impossible"), Starmer will welcome 47 European heads of state.
"European Political Community" (EPC) is the name of the format that was founded in 2022 – as a reaction to the Ukraine War and at the suggestion of French President Emmanuel Macron. It is intended to be an informal networking platform for European countries in a broader sense. Therefore, not only EU states belong to it, but also membership candidates like Moldova, Ukraine, or North Macedonia.
They have met three times so far, in Prague, in Moldova, and in Granada. To the fourth meeting at Blenheim Castle, Starmer's predecessor Rishi Sunak had invited.
The Mood Has Turned
Despite the preparatory stress for his successor in Downing Street, the meeting comes. After the hard Brexit, Britain had politically moved to the edge of Europe. But what was supposed to be a liberation blow for the island from the Brussels corset is long since a burden.
In mid-January, the London Mayor Sadiq Khan made the results of a study by the British consulting firm Cambridge Econometrics public. According to their findings, Brexit costs Britain £140 billion every year. Economic output has shrunk by six percent since leaving the EU.
The mood in the country has been negative for a while. In surveys, a regular majority of Britons now believe that the exit from the EU was a mistake.
Keir Starmer, as Labour leader, would indeed touch a nerve with a U-turn in British EU policy. However, he had already announced in the campaign that Britain would "never join the EU in my lifetime." Why?
"Starmer's statement should not be taken literally," says Thomas Matussek, Chairman of the German-British Society and former German Ambassador to Britain from 2002 to 2006: "The question of whether Britain will return to the EU in the next few years cannot be answered seriously." The former diplomat explained. Although there is now a majority against Brexit: "But it is a shaky majority." It consists only partly of EU supporters; the other part are Britons who only see Brexit as poorly implemented.
Keir Starmer Has a Brexit Trauma
Moreover, Starmer has a Brexit trauma. In 2019, he announced that Labour, in the event of a victory in the general election, would let the British people vote again on Brexit and campaign for staying in the EU. The result: Boris Johnson won with the promise, "to get Brexit done" (he would deliver Brexit), while Labour suffered a defeat. Starmer has not forgotten this. That's why the term "Brexit" only appeared once in Labour's election manifesto.
However, the Prime Minister is in a dilemma. He has publicly promised that under his leadership, Britain will have the fastest economic growth among the G-7 countries. Of course, that could also happen without the EU, a British commentator remarked; but that would be about as easy as putting on shoes without hands.
Aapproach to a common market with the EU in the interest of Britain, says former ambassador Thomas Matussek. He expects that the British government will rather move towards the EU cautiously. This could happen through common military projects or close alignment in Ukraine policy, believes Matussek.
Starmer must be careful not to push EU skeptics in his own country away. At the same time, he must avoid giving the impression to the EU that Britain is practicing "Cherrypicking," wanting to profit from the advantages of the European Union (such as customs simplifications) but avoiding all obligations.
A rapprochement between Britain and the EU is also considered desirable by former ambassador Matussek from the German perspective: "The Britons should know that we need them, also as a European nuclear power." In view of a possible re-election of Donald Trump as US President, tensions with China, and the politically unstable situation in France, it is important that the rest of Europe draws closer. Whether Britain eventually returns formally to the arms of Europe, or rather to the EU, is secondary.
The European meeting at Schloss Blenheim could at least mark the beginning of a new wonderful friendship between Keith Starmer and the EU heads of state and government.
Starmer's meeting with the European heads of state at Blenheim Castle, despite being uninvited, presents an opportunity for the United Kingdom's new Prime Minister to engage with the European Union, especially since the UK's departure from the EU has been met with criticism and financial losses. Olaf Scholz, the German Chancellor, is also scheduled to attend this meeting.
In light of Starmer's past Brexit trauma, where he opposed Boris Johnson's "Get Brexit done" promise, he must navigate this EU engagement carefully to avoid alienating EU skeptics within his own country while also avoiding the perception of "cherry-picking" benefits from the EU without accepting its obligations.
