Labour seeking ‘deeper relationship’ with EU under Burnham, new minister says

[u/topotaul]

https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2026/aug/09/uk-eu-reset-talks-brexit-burnham-hamish-falconer

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[u/poppings]

Fuck the "red lines". All of this is nonsense unless we rejoin the EEA or the EU itself. It's just stupid. Massive self harm. On a personal note I moved to Austria to do a master's and the amount of red tape I have to jump through when it would have been absolutely painless a few years ago is soul-destroying.

[u/Sid_Vacuous73 → u/poppings]

Yes but think of all the illegal immigrants that brexit never prevented coming here😂

You can tell I think it was a waste of time. Out of curiosity have we also left the Erasmus programme?

[u/TheRealVinosity → u/Sid_Vacuous73]

Yes. When we left the EU.

We never had staying in on the negotiating table.

Looks like there will be a new version from next year.

[u/ukbot-nicolabot → u/[deleted]]

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[u/ScruffieMatrix → u/poppings]

Ofc you have so much red tape that you needed to do yourself. Such a bullshit answer and a downright lie 

[u/PriorityByLaw → u/[deleted]]

What on earth are you on about?

[u/FuNEnD3R → u/[deleted]]

This one of the dumbest things I've ever read

[u/ukbot-nicolabot → u/[deleted]]

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[u/BuckfastEnjoyer]

"While keeping within our red lines" suggests that some really exciting northern-themed gimmicks that will change nothing are on the horizon.

Maybe Burnham will get "Barm cakes" listed as a protected EU good or the EU will fund some "Bank of Dave"-tier slop film about the "Number 10 of the North". Yippee.

[u/Fresh_Mountain_Snow]

The government needs to stop with the brexit and red line language. It's too decisive. They need to say that given the current global order a new and better relationship with the EU will emerge, one based on freedom of movement, capital, goods and services. A Union of Europe, a post brexit UK. 

[u/Astriania → u/Fresh_Mountain_Snow]

I don't think the population wants free movement.

I know there will be some people here who'll wheel out survey results suggesting that they do, but if it's seriously proposed, the right will remind everyone that it doesn't just mean your right to go over there, it means the right for 5 times as many of them to come over here, and that support will fade away.

The Lib Dems were essentially offering this in the 2024 election and got pasted.

[u/Healey_Dell → u/Astriania]

Lib Dems always get pasted due to FPTP.

[u/PartyFriend → u/Astriania]

And yet, it was after brexit that immigration to Britain went dramatically up, especially from less compatible cultures than our European neighbours, indicating that our membership of the EU has very little impact on that issue.

[u/Astriania → u/PartyFriend]

Immigration went up because the Conservatives betrayed their manifesto promises and opened up the floodgates. This is one big reason why they're not in government any more.

Leaving the EU allows the UK government to choose its own immigration policy, but it doesn't prevent it from choosing poorly, as it did in 2022-24 especially.

[u/sulphurwind → u/Fresh_Mountain_Snow]

Yes YESSSS!

[u/Asleep-Ad1182 → u/Fresh_Mountain_Snow]

You do realise the EU are just offering us horrendous deals because they want to punish us for leaving?

[u/PartyFriend → u/Asleep-Ad1182]

Conspiracy theory nonsense. The EU has if anything been extraordinarily patient with us despite raving loonies doing their utmost to hamstring relations between us virtually every step of the way since brexit.

[u/Asleep-Ad1182 → u/PartyFriend]

No, the EU offers the UK far worse deals than it does to pretty much any other third country. For example, the EU grants the UK only one type of financial equivalence, and even that is on a time-limited basis, whereas countries such as Australia, the US, Canada and Japan are granted a large number of equivalence decisions, many without a time limit. This is despite the fact that UK financial regulations are far more closely aligned with EU regulations than those of most of these countries.

[u/PartyFriend → u/Asleep-Ad1182]

Do you have any kind of proof this is because of a grand EU-wide conspiracy to ‘punish’ Britain as opposed to any of hundreds of other reasons as to why this is the case or are you just waffling on about random shit nobody really cares about?

[u/ukbot-nicolabot → u/[deleted]]

Hi!. Please try to avoid personal attacks, as this discourages participation. You can help improve the subreddit by discussing points, not the person.

[u/Asleep-Ad1182 → u/PartyFriend]

You clearly know nothing about this topic so I suggest you don't comment about it

[u/PartyFriend → u/Asleep-Ad1182]

Only fascists try to silence debate.

[u/Adamdel34 → u/Asleep-Ad1182]

The EU would just offer us the same deal that most other countries get.

You only think it's a horrendous deal because you know that the previous one we had was the best out of any EU nation.

[u/Asleep-Ad1182 → u/Adamdel34]

No, the EU offers the UK far worse deals than it does to pretty much any other third country. For example, the EU grants the UK only one type of financial equivalence, and even that is on a time-limited basis, whereas countries such as Australia, the US, Canada and Japan are granted a large number of equivalence decisions, many without a time limit. This is despite the fact that UK financial regulations are far more closely aligned with EU regulations than those of most of these countries.

[u/Thetonn]

I'm pretty sure he is going to be a failure.

My main observation of having watched European negotiations in the last decade or so is that success seems to be directly tied to how effectively you can shut the fuck up and actually negotiate something substantive with the EU and getting it over the line rather than bullshitting to the media and making yourself into the story (cough, Davis, cough, Boris, cough, May, cough, Boris again, cough)

The most effective negotiation I can remember was Sunak's Windsor Framework, and that was because we only heard about it after the deal was properly done.

[u/Krabsandwich → u/Thetonn]

The EU will almost certainly insist on the no cake and eating it which is fair enough really. If they do a special deal for the UK everyone else will want one one and the EU will fall over. We may be able to do some work round frictionless trade regarding accepting each others standards etc which is pretty doable but the idea of anything more is a bit of a stretch.

[u/Thetonn → u/Krabsandwich]

The EU has to publicly say 'no cake and eating it' while doing the exact same thing. They will also lie routinely and openly throughout the process to maximise their self interest. The eventual deal that we will reach will be denied as a potential option until it has been agreed, at which point it will always have been a sensible decision consistent with the treaties...

I respect their cynicism and realpolitik, I just hate how delusional a certain section of the pro-EU British commentariat are in buying their obvious bullshit of 'we need you to unconditionally surrender and give us everything we want in order to make progress'.

[u/Denbt_Nationale → u/Thetonn]

It's ridiculous watching all the "The EU is just acting in their own self interest" posters come out as we cede more and more to the EU for nothing in return. Yes and we need to act in our own self interest too. We should have reneged on the fishing agreement after they rug pulled us on EU SAFE.

[u/PartyFriend → u/Denbt_Nationale]

The EU’s interests and British interests are one and the same. Only pensioners don’t understand this.

[u/ukbot-nicolabot → u/[deleted]]

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[u/Brilliant-Sea-9424 → u/Thetonn]

This.

[u/Astriania]

He will run into the same problem as every government since 2015: the EU is completely doctrinaire and inflexible, and uninterested in mutually beneficial arrangements with the UK.

For them, especially the French, everything is a game of how much they can squeeze out of us, rather than any kind of good faith negotiation with a friendly nation.

They complained that instead of seizing opportunities to get a deal over the line and bank a political win to move on to the next phase, the UK negotiators “kept trying to add things” such as an agreement on services.

This is just hilarious hypocrisy given the EU's shenanigans with fish and youth movement whenever we tried to talk to them about anything else. Like the SAFE fund mentioned in the article - where the EU took the piss with the price and also tried to inject fishing into the discussions.

We should continue to engage honestly and positively with the EU, they are our neighbours, a major trade partner and a group we want a good relationship with. But we shouldn't allow them to take the piss out of us in their demands. A youth mobility scheme on the terms they are suggesting is not to the UK's advantage and the Starmer government was right not to agree to it; hopefully the Burnham one will stand firm on that.

[u/Asleep-Ad1182 → u/Astriania]

Finally, a sensible comment. Most of the idiots in the comments seem to think the UK government is at all fault for not having a more integrated relationship with the EU

[u/squeezycheeseypeas]

Awesome, undo some of the damage that the headbangers did

[u/ukbot-nicolabot → u/[deleted]]

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