Britain’s Labour government is heading into a Nov. 20 summit in Brussels with a draft deal that would have British taxpayers fund poorer EU regions and follow EU rules overseen by the European Court of Justice, and the EU is also pressing London to stop deporting convicted European offenders, according to leaked documents reported by The Telegraph and GB News.
Prime Minister Andy Burnham, who replaced Sir Keir Starmer, is trying to “reset” relations with the European Union nearly a decade after Britons voted to leave.
What the draft says
A draft joint EU-UK statement seen by The Telegraph says Britain’s access to parts of the EU’s internal market “requires an appropriate level of financial contribution towards reducing economic and social disparities between the regions of the EU.” In return, British energy companies would be allowed to trade in the bloc’s electricity market.
The Telegraph reported that the money would go into projects building roads, airports and green energy facilities in poorer member states. Britain would also copy EU tariffs on Chinese vehicles.
Under separate food safety and emissions pacts, the paper said, Britain would realign with hundreds of Brussels regulations and submit to the jurisdiction of the European Court of Justice. A youth mobility deal would let young Europeans work, study or travel in Britain for up to three years. The draft has not been signed and is subject to change.
GB News, citing a document first seen by Sky News, reported that the EU wants Labour to commit “not to proceed with… removals and deportations” of European offenders to their home countries. That follows a change this year allowing the Home Office to deport foreign criminals once they are sentenced. A government source told Sky that Britain would not agree to that demand, The Independent reported.
Farage: “a complete sellout”
Reform UK leader Nigel Farage said on his GB News show that “dynamic alignment” means “every single law the EU passes in the area of food, food standards, and even in some areas of trade, we will literally have to follow without having any say whatsoever.”
“If you do all of these things, if you’re even considering going back in some form of free movement, I believe this is a complete sellout by Burnham,” Farage said. “A man who has no mandate.”
The Telegraph reported Friday that several Cabinet members fear he has “no plan.” One minister told the paper, “He’s opened up a debate without a plan. It has just opened a lot of old wounds and reignited support for Reform that was waning.” Burnham has said Brexit did “more harm than good” and has refused to rule out a second referendum.
The bottom line
I watch Britain with real sympathy. Seventeen million people voted in 2016 to make their own laws, control their own borders and keep their own money. A decade later, a Prime Minister who, in Farage’s words, has no mandate is negotiating to pay Brussels, accept a foreign court and possibly give up the power to send convicted criminals home.
That should alarm Americans. Every time our own leaders sign on to international climate pacts, global tax deals or United Nations migration frameworks, they trade a little more self-government for approval from abroad. Britain took four years to leave, and its government is now negotiating its way back toward EU rules piece by piece.
Americans should insist that our laws are written by people we elect, that criminal aliens are deported without asking anyone’s permission, and that no treaty puts a foreign court above our Constitution.