Sir Keir Starmer will press forward with his European charm offensive this week as he hosts continental leaders for talks at the birthplace of Winston Churchill.
The meeting of the European Political Community is taking place on Thursday at Blenheim Palace, the Oxfordshire estate still occupied by Churchill’s relatives, the Marlboroughs.
It will be the second time in recent years that the palace has provided a resplendent background for careful diplomatic footwork, after Theresa May hosted a grand dinner there for Donald Trump in 2018.
That occasion was marred by an interview in which former US president Trump claimed May had ignored his Brexit negotiating advice and “wrecked” her chances.
Starmer will be hoping for better luck as he welcomes French president Emmanuel Macron, German chancellor Olaf Scholz, Polish prime minister Donald Tusk and other key allies.
Fresh from the Nato summit in Washington DC, the Prime Minister wants to build momentum behind his proposed defence and security pact with the European Union – a move intended to signal an end to Brexit feuding.
David Lammy, Starmer’s newly appointed Foreign Secretary, has said this could span defence, energy, climate initiatives, critical minerals, pandemic response and efforts to tackle illegal migration.
Yet there are also fears that Labour’s embrace of Europe will have unintended consequences for Britain and its defence industry.
The EU is in the process of setting up defence structures and institutions – long obstructed by Britain when it was a member – that critics argue will undermine Nato, while making it harder for UK companies to compete.
“The risk here is that we’re tied into a broader EU defence project, where the UK is once again subject to Brussels regulations but, this time, does not have a seat at the table in making them,” warns Dr Radomir Tylecote, managing director of the Legatum Institute in London.
“Those regulations will ultimately be designed to benefit other countries and their companies, so any drift in that direction should set alarm bells ringing.”
“This will ultimately come down to negotiation, so the Government must stand up for British interests.”
The EU’s defence ambitions became a flashpoint during the 2016 Brexit referendum when Leave campaigners accused Brussels of drawing up plans for an “EU army” in secret.
Since Britain’s exit, however, the bloc’s push towards the “harmonisation” of European military power has been overt, with a series of new structures set up to pool research and development spending, improve interoperability and better coordinate member state capabilities.
Two key pillars of this have included setting up a European Defence Fund (EDF) for research spending and the Permanent Structured Cooperation (Pesco) mechanism, which aims to better integrate European forces.
These will ostensibly help European countries work together as they re-arm for an age of geopolitical instability.
And while Britain had long opposed these kinds of initiatives, the previous Conservative government more recently relented, amid concerns about Russia’s attack on Ukraine and fears that UK companies risk being shut out of procurement.
Some British executives see the benefit in getting access to schemes such as the EDF, even though it only commands a modest budget of €8bn (£6.7bn) currently.
Yet they also worry that the EU’s defence structures are a thinly-disguised bout of protectionism, intended to block US companies from winning military contracts on the Continent.
While member states such as Germany and Poland have been perfectly happy to order the US-made Patriot system and Israel’s Arrow 3 for their new Sky Shield missile defence scheme, for example, France has repeatedly banged the drum for European alternatives such as the SAMP-T system made by continental champions MBDA and Thales.
“It’s all about keeping the Americans out,” one British defence executive says. “And the risk is that the UK gets caught in the crossfire.
“At the moment, as a third country, we are viewed by the EU as virtually no different to China, which is clearly ridiculous.
“There is a hope that the election of this Labour government has created an opening.”
For now, Britain’s overtures have been limited to joining one Pesco project – which is still being finalised – aimed at making the transportation of Nato troops across European borders easier.
But John Healey, the new Labour Defence Secretary, suggested in Washington that the British Government wants to become even more deeply involved in Pesco.
There is speculation that Labour may also seek to join the EDF, although Healey has insisted the Government will seek “bespoke” alternatives.
The Legatum Institute’s Tylecote, who recently published a paper on this issue, says the danger is that Britain will get sucked into various European initiatives by stealth if it signs up to Pesco or other schemes.
The UK “should acknowledge that a growing capacity in EU politico-military bodies implies a gradual erosion of national military freedom”, his report argues, with the European Commission in Brussels playing an increasingly muscular role in setting standards and policy.
There is also a concern that even if Britain joins schemes such as the EDF, it could find its companies are denied equal rights and will be blocked from freely using the intellectual property they develop under European initiatives – preventing them from sharing it with some Nato allies such as the US.
This is where the EU’s efforts risk undermining Nato and wrecking useful cooperation between British and European companies, argues Tylecote. He points to existing collaborations between the UK’s BAE Systems and France’s Dassault, and MBDA (a Franco-British-Italian company) and another French outfit, Thales, as examples.
He is also wary of linking defence to other subjects such as immigration, arguing that it makes no sense to make trade-offs in one area in exchange for another.
Labour sources, though light on detail about the deal they are seeking, insist that Starmer, Lammy and Healey will not sign up to anything that disadvantages Britain or its companies.
They also point to the fact that the Government is not just focused on the EU. On the sidelines of the Washington Nato summit, Starmer agreed to enhance defence cooperation with Germany’s Scholz on a bilateral basis, with discussions set to continue in Blenheim.
There, to progress a deal that works for both sides, the PM will need to extend the hand of friendship – while showing some of Churchill’s mettle.
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