The long journey to this week’s EU-British reset of relations began with a phone call from the opposition leader Keir Starmer to his old friend Nick Thomas-Symonds on 4 September, 2023. Sitting in his London flat, he was told that if there was to be a Labour government, Starmer saw healing battered relations with the EU as a top priority.
The result was the up-ending of Thomas-Symonds’ life as he began a relentless shuttle between his family home, which he shares with his sixth-form sweetheart and their three children; London; and the capitals of Europe. Each week over the next year he left Abersychan – once the hometown of that celebrated European Roy Jenkins – for Paris, Berlin, Brussels, Rome, Warsaw, Helsinki, Tallinn and even the Vatican.
It was an exhausting Eurostar odyssey, building the personal relationships which culminated in this week’s “turning the page” love-in and – equally important – the prospect of annual EU-UK summits in the years to come. Standing in the Downing Street garden on Monday (19 May) the European Trade Commissioner Maroš Šefčovič told assembled dignitaries that he had been in such close contact with Thomas-Symonds that his wife had suspiciously challenged him on the identity of the “Nikki” appearing so relentlessly on his phone log. (Welsh Penderyn whisky was also presented. Šefčovič is trying to convert the Welshman to Slovakian red wine.)
From those first days in opposition, Thomas-Symonds had constructed a three-pillar strategy. Because of Starmer’s public commitment not to restore the single market, customs union or free movement – which he thinks cannot be revised in this Parliament – he would concentrate on new relationships in, first, security and defence; second the safety of citizens, covering both crime and migration; and third, trade and growth.
Some economists have expressed disappointment at the relatively small numerical impact of all this; the Prime Minister has spoken of an additional £9 billion annually for the economy, very little measured against the £100 billion economists say has been lost because of the Brexit deal. But Thomas-Symonds says that is a deliberately low, cautious estimate. It only refers to the food and agriculture deal and the emissions scheme, not to any future access to the gigantic new €150 billion European defence investment fund.
About this, he is bullish. “The principle is that to access the fund you have to have a security and defence partnership, which we now have. There are further negotiations around important details such as protecting intellectual property but there is very wide acceptance that we must not fragment the European defence industry.” The share prices for BAE Systems, Babcock, and Rolls-Royce tend to support his optimism.
Thomas-Symonds also emphasises the importance of the emissions trading deal which will save the UK £800m annually in European taxes, and of energy cooperation more generally: “We have undersea cables between the EU and the UK already and we are not taking full advantage of the interconnectors and the offshore wind.”
On the e-gates issue, so important to tourists and business travellers, he has been negotiating separately with the Port of Dover and Eurostar. The further EU biometric checks ahead, he points out, will be useful in tackling illegal immigration. But on airport queues, he accepts the next stage is for individual European countries: like Starmer, he hopes summer tourists will notice a big difference.
Thomas-Symonds is rare in the current cabinet in having a deep interest in Labour history. The recent biographer of Harold Wilson, he tells me that he drew inspiration from the former leader: “I have talked about ruthless pragmatism, and I took a lot from Harold Wilson’s renegotiation of terms with the Common Market in the mid-1970s.
Wilson was determined to keep Britain in. After Brexit, things are different for Labour, however much many in the party wish they were not. “Our mandate is clear,” said Thomas-Symonds, “it is not to return to the single market, or customs union or free movement. But I do believe that closer cooperation with this huge partner, worth £800 billion in trade, is strongly in our national interest.”
When I ask him why the principle of dynamic alignment on standards cannot be extended from food and agriculture to other areas, he sternly reminds me that as with the US and Indian trade deals, “these are all sovereign decisions by the government”.
He does not envisage a further lurch towards the EU before the next general election and, amid the current hullabaloo about “betrayal” and “surrender”, he is keen for a robust political fight with the Tories and Reform over a deal which business has greeted so enthusiastically. If there is a certain wily mistiness about the longer-term future then – well – both Harold and Roy would approve.
[See also: The EU-UK reset exposes the limits of a “geopolitical Europe”]
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