Sir Keir Starmer met Germany’s top leaders on Wednesday morning before heading on to France, aiming for a post-Brexit reset in relations with core European partners following Labour’s election triumph.
The Prime Minister held talks in Berlin with Chancellor Olaf Scholz and President Frank-Walter Steinmeier as the two countries launched a dialogue for a new UK-German treaty to increase business and joint action on illegal migration.
They aim to agree the first such partnership deal since Brexit by early 2025, modelled on the UK’s existing Lancaster House accords with France, which cover defence and security notably.
But the Prime Minister insisted that he was not “reversing Brexit,” but hopes for “a wider reset” with the European Union, adding that the deal would not mean re-entering the single market or the customs union.
He explained: “It does mean a closer relationship on a number of fronts, including the economy, including defence, including exchanges, but we do not have plans for a youth mobility scheme.”
Mr Scholz said the UK and Germany were “good friends, close partners and trusted allies” as Sir Keir promised a “bright new future” for the countries’ relationship.Sir Keir said the new UK-Germany treaty would result in “deeper links on science, technology, development, people, business, culture” and “a boost to our trading relations”.
He added: “This treaty is part of a wider reset, grounded in a new spirit of cooperation with our shared understanding that this will be developed at pace, and that we hope to have agreed it by the end of the year.”
A new defence agreement will build on the “already formidable” co-operation between the two countries, Sir Keir said.
Sir Keir was the first PM to visit Bellevue Palace, the official residence of the German president, since David Cameron in 2015. He signed the palace guestbook in the entrance hall, which was decorated with red, white and blue flowers in his honour, before going into his private meeting with Mr Steinmeier.
An agreement on youth mobility has been suggested by Brussels and could be a key demand in any negotiations with Britain.
Mr Scholz said: “We want to create good relations between the UK and the European Union, it can become better day by day, and we all share an interest.”
There was “reason to do everything in our power to improve relations between both countries but also the UK and the European Union”.
The PM stressed economic growth and investment as a primary motivation for the two-day trip to Europe.
Germany is Britain’s second largest trading partner, accounting for 8.5 per cent of all UK trade, and Sir Keir was meeting in Berlin also with Christian Bruch, chief executive of Siemens Energy, which employs more than 6,000 people in Britain.
The trip will take in the Paralympics opening ceremony on Wednesday night and talks with President Emmanuel Macron in Paris on Thursday, and also a breakfast meeting with representatives from French companies including Thales and Sanofi.
Ahead of it, Sir Keir said the UK had a “once-in-a-generation opportunity to reset our relationship with Europe”.
“We must turn a corner on Brexit and fix the broken relationships left behind by the previous government,” the PM added, after vowing at a European summit in Blenheim Palace last month to work with allies against illegal migration.
Nils Schmid, the foreign affairs spokesman in parliament for Germany’s ruling SPD party, said Chancellor Scholz and Sir Keir were centre-left allies who were “more or less on the same page” about improving the UK’s relationship with Europe.
“So there is a constant push by the German government to bring the UK closer to Europe and to facilitate cooperation between Great Britain and the European Union in as many fields as possible, ranging from trade to student mobility rights to defence,” he told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme.
However, Downing Street is ruling out a deal on youth mobility, with Labour anxious not to give an opening to Conservative arguments that it plans to renege on the Brexit referendum’s rejection of free movement of people in Europe.
Tory leadership hopeful Robert Jenrick said he backed Sir Keir seeking increased cooperation with allies, “whether that's in Europe, the United States, anywhere else in the world”.
“What I do not want to see him do is cede control, and I don't want us to be undermining Nato as the principal foundation of our security and defence in Europe,” he told Sky News.
“And I don't want to see us lose the Brexit benefits that we should now be harnessing. We want to be growing our economy by boosting the industries of the future, like technology, financial services, life sciences.
“And that means, at times, diverging from Europe.”
