Changing the UK's Relationship with the EU

Why Predictability, Consistency and Coherence Matter

Keir Starmer wants to re-set the UK’s relationship with the European Union. But in the organisation of his new government, where should responsibility for EU relations lie and can lessons be learned from past experiences?

The United Kingdom (UK) has a new Prime Minister; the first Labour Prime Minister in office since the UK left the European Union (EU). Although the UK’s relationship with the EU barely featured in the election campaigns, Sir Keir Starmer intimated his desire to re-set relations with the EU following the divisive Brexit vote and the turbulent politics that ensued.

Elected on a mandate of ‘change’, the aspiration to evolve the UK’s position in Europe is understandable. Paradoxically, the success of that agenda may depend on the capacity of the Starmer government to offer predictability, consistency and coherence in its dealings with European partners. Recent experiences of EU-UK relations show that whereas the EU supplied relatively consistent political representation of its interests, the location of power and authority for EU relations within UK Government was a more moveable feast. If he is to succeed in his mission of change, the Prime Minister needs to clarify and stabilise the roles of the Foreign Office, Cabinet Office and indeed, his own office. In so doing, past experiences of the operation of the machinery of government may hold valuable lessons.

EU Membership

Throughout the UK’s EU membership, much of Whitehall was ‘Europeanised’. Although to different degrees, the implementation and application of EU law reached into every government department. At a more political and strategic level, the Foreign Office and Cabinet Office played key roles in the coordination of EU relations.

With summit meetings of European leaders becoming an institutionalised feature of EU political leadership, the attendance of the Prime Minister at European Council meetings secured political engagement at the highest level. Starmer’s Labour predecessors – Tony Blair and Gordon Brown – had very different appetites for this sort of summitry with the latter seeming to view such encounters as a distraction from domestic and international politics.

But overall, the UK was – until the final years of its membership – a dependable (even if sometimes reluctant) European partner.

De-Membership

The UK’s withdrawal from the EU following the 2016 EU membership referendum took a heavy toll on the organisation of government and the distribution of political authority in the UK. Whereas the EU adapted its existing organisational and procedural routines for its external relations in its negotiations with the UK – with consistent political leadership – it encountered a UK Government that not only changed its prime ministers and Brexit negotiators but also spread political leadership and decision-making across departments in different ways and at different times.

In the immediate aftermath of the Brexit referendum result, outgoing Prime Minister David Cameron established a small unit within the Cabinet Office and headed by Olly Robbins to begin preparations for Brexit with political oversight from Cabinet Office minister Oliver Letwin. With the creation of the Department for Exiting the EU as an entirely new government department, expertise from the Cabinet Office, the Foreign Office and across Whitehall departments was incorporated into the new department, with Robbins becoming its first permanent secretary. Three secretaries of state headed up the department before it was dissolved once the UK formally left the EU. Although political responsibility for the negotiations lay with successive ministers, it was Olly Robbins who became Prime Minister May’s Europe adviser and who lead her negotiations with EU counterparts. Under Prime Minister Johnson, Lord David Frost took over Robbins’ negotiating role and with the dissolution of the Department for Exiting the EU, Frost lead a new Task Force Europe within the Prime Minister’s office to conduct negotiations on the UK’s future relationship with the EU, formalised in the EU-UK Trade and Cooperation Agreement ITCA).

Post-Membership

The UK’s post-membership relationship with the EU is largely determined by the implementation of its Withdrawal Agreement and the TCA. Both agreements vest responsibility for their implementation in joint institutions (notwithstanding the tendency of the Johnson government to engage in unilateralism and political freelancing). Again on the EU side there has been significant continuity under the political leadership of European Commission Vice-President Maroš Šefčovič. His initial counterpart in the Joint Committee overseeing the implementation of the Withdrawal Agreement was the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster, Michael Gove, with Lord Frost as Šefčovič’s opposite number in the TCA’s Partnership Council. This put the Cabinet Office in the lead role from the UK’s side. However, in subsequent meetings of both joint structures it was the UK’s Foreign Secretary that led the discussions, suggesting a shift in political authority under Prime Minister Sunak’s government away from the Cabinet Office. This makes some sense when it is the UK Mission to the EU – the post-membership successor to the UK’s Permanent Representation – that maintains close links with EU institutions and EU Member States and which reports into the Foreign Office. But it usefully illustrates a tension between viewing the EU as part of foreign policy or as a distinctive part of the administration and coordination of policy within the Cabinet Office.

That UK policies maintains a strong European inheritance has its most obvious expression in the body of EU rules domesticated as ‘retained EU law’ (now known as ‘assimilated’ law) following the UK’s exit from the EU. It is changes in these rules that are at the forefront of debates about the UK’s post-membership alignment with, or divergence from, EU regulatory policies and frameworks. Keen to show the UK’s willingness to exercise its regulatory autonomy, Jacob Rees-Mogg became Minister of State for Brexit Opportunities within the Cabinet Office. With his appointment as Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, responsibility for legislation to repeal and reform retained EU law fell within his departmental remit. It was Rees-Mogg who originally sponsored what became the Retained EU Law (Revocation and Reform) Act 2023. Although a number of other government departments – not least HM Treasury, the Department for the Environment, Food and Rural; Affairs and the Department for Transport – have direct responsibility for changing retained EU law, it is the Department for Business and Trade that has functionally absorbed responsibility for retained EU law, folding it into its own work on regulatory reform more generally. Once again this raises questions about the coordinative role of the Cabinet Office when contrasted with the departmental authority of a single department under a Secretary of State.

Drawing Lessons

In light of what we know so far about the Starmer government, are there lessons learned (or not) from recent examples of how the machinery of government manages relations between the UK and the EU?

The new Foreign Secretary David Lamy was quick out of the blocks with visits to Germany, Poland and Sweden, prefaced by an article in which he set out some of the UK’s aspirations for cooperation in Europe centred around a European Security Pact. While hinting at stronger ties among citizens, the shape or architecture for forging such bonds was missing, But drawing on the post-membership role of the Foreign Secretary in the structures for joint EU-UK working, we might expect a heightened visibility of the Foreign Office and Foreign Secretary in developing EU relations.

That said, the Prime Minister also appointed Nick Thomas-Symonds as Minister of State for the Constitution and European Relations within the Cabinet Office. That this is a combined role sitting in the Cabinet Office risks compromising its potential. If the Starmer government is serious about constitutional reform – including grasping the nettles of House of Lords reform – it is unclear how that can be pursued effectively without putting relations with the EU on a very slow simmer. The fear is that before too long, the roles are split and another new minister takes on the European brief but with churn in the post-holder undermining efforts to build new relationships.

But even if the appointment of a Cabinet Office minister is a statement of serious intent – and reports suggested he could attend Cabinet meetings – it may be that the Prime Minister will want some further expertise and input into his own thinking. With it being likely that the Cabinet Secretary Simon Case will quit his post, one name being touted to replace him is (Sir) Olly Robbons, the Europe adviser to Theresa May. That would provide the Prime Minister with a valuable source of European expertise. It would also shift power from the Cabinet Office into the Prime Minister’s office. As premier, unlike his Labour predecessors, Starmer will not have privileged access to the political arena of European Council summits. Nonetheless, and early in his premiership as host of the fourth meeting of the European Political Community in mid-July, Starmer will have valuable face time with key counterparts as he begins to explore the political terrain upon which new alliances might be built. The authority of the office of Prime Minister will still count as the UK re-sets its relationship with the EU.

Also to be thrown into the mix is the role of the Department for Business and Trade. Outside the EU, the UK is responsible for its own trade policy including its free trade agreements and membership of multilateral trade blocs. Together with its domestic role on regulatory reform, the Department’s work is closely linked to the delivery of the economic growth which the Prime Minister and Chancellor are hoping will fund key spending pledges. But it is not clear where re-setting a relationship with the EU fits into its priorities or organisational structures.

Predictability, Consistency and Coherence

In a useful open letter to the Prime Minister, the Director of the Centre for European Reform Charles Grant lists some important pointers for the new government in approaching its European counterparts. To these one might add the virtues of predictability, consistency and coherence. In its dealings with the UK, the EU has harnessed the power of routine – a bureaucratic power – to manage the disruptive politics of Brexit. Keir Starmer’s aspirations for a new relationship with the EU might also benefit from organisational stability and continuity to ground the detailed work of mending a fractured relationship. While his election slogan was ‘change’, it is predictability, consistency and coherence that will make change happen.