Keir Starmer has said that a government in France led by Marine Le Pen’s National Rally (RN) party would not hamper a Labour government’s intention to negotiate a better EU deal.
The RN made historic gains in the first round of France’s snap elections on Sunday with 33% of the vote, bringing the possibility the party could emerge as the largest in the final round of voting next Sunday.
The Labour leader was asked if he was concerned that a victory for Le Pen would hamper his ability to gain closer economic ties with the EU if he becomes prime minister.
“I genuinely don’t want to get ahead of myself,” he said. “Firstly, we haven’t seen the final outcome in France, we’ve also got a big outcome of our own on Thursday, so we need those two pieces to fall into place and to be clear, I don’t think it affects the overall intention that we have, which is to negotiate a better deal with the EU.”
“I think the deal we’ve got is botched, I think that anyone who does business with the EU feels that it’s botched and that we could do better than that, across not just trade but research and development, and also on the security front.”
While Starmer has ruled out radically reforming Britain’s ties with the EU, he has said a Labour government would “reset” its relationship with the EU, with members of his top team including David Lammy, Jonathan Reynolds and the Scottish Labour leader, Anas Sarwar, saying it would be in the country’s “national interest”.
He stressed he was willing to “work with any government in Europe and across the world”, adding: “For me, that’s what serious government is about. So yes, we will work with whoever.
“I do think it is important that we make the progressive case to meet the challenges that we face across Europe and across the world. And that’s why Thursday and the general election here is so important, because I think that only progressive answers will actually make a material difference to the challenges that we’re facing.”
Le Pen has a preference for bilateral deals over EU-wide ones. Starmer said: “I’ve always supported bilaterals as well as EU-wide agreements. They’re not mutually exclusive.
“And some of the agreements we’ve got with France are bilateral in any event. I think they need to be stronger and better and deeper, particularly in relation to smashing the gangs that are running the vile trade of putting people into boats.”
Starmer was speaking to reporters in the constituency of Buckingham and Bletchley on the second stop of his tour through formerly safe rural Conservative heartlands, having first visited Hitchen before heading to Banbury in Oxfordshire where the Tory cabinet minister Victoria Prentis hopes to hold her seat.
He said the rise of nationalism meant that Labour had to “address the everyday concerns of so many people in this country who feel disaffected by politics”.
Starmer did dodge questions over whether he would meet the Russian president, Vladimir Putin, if he were to become prime minister, dismissing it as “simply not an issue” at the moment.
Rishi Sunak criticised Starmer for failing to match the Conservative’s pledge to increase defence spending, a pledge made only after former ministers spoke out about the need for it.
“It sends a bad signal to our adversaries, like Putin, that we’re not serious about investing in our security, that we don’t have the staying power to stand up to him,” Sunak told Times Radio.
Reform UK announced a £1m advertising splurge in the final days of the campaign, claiming it had been “flooded” with £400,000 of donations in 24 hours, and that the party’s membership had doubled from 30,000 to 60,000 in the last month.
