Labour vows to ‘improve’ Boris Johnson’s Brexit deal

Rachel Reeves has pledged to forge closer ties with the European Union if Labour wins the general election.

Ms Reeves, the shadow chancellor, said she wanted to improve the UK-EU trade deal agreed by Boris Johnson’s government in 2020.

“We would look to improve our trading relationship with Europe, and do trade deals around the world,” she told The Financial Times.

Ms Reeves said that Labour would look to strike deals in the chemical and veterinary sectors and would reset the UK’s global image after the Brexit years.

“I don’t think anyone voted Leave because they were not happy that chemicals regulations were the same across Europe,” she said. “When my constituency voted leave, it was purely because of immigration.”

Labour would also try to secure better touring rights for UK artists and greater mutual recognition of qualifications for financial services workers, she added.

The party is also expected to increase foreign policy and security cooperation with the EU if it wins the election on July 4.

Labour has been reluctant to discuss Brexit in the election campaign for fear of alienating returning Red Wall voters, but has a consistent 20-point lead over the Tories.

The party has said its red lines are that it will not rejoin the EU’s single market or customs union and that freedom of movement or any deal on youth mobility is also off the table.

However, that will limit the extent of any agreement with Brussels, which has already poured cold water on Labour hopes of a major overhaul of the trade agreement.

The bloc is happy with the agreement and claims to only be interested in minor tweaks ahead of a 2026 review date.

The European Commission will also be wary of any attempts at “cherry-picking” by Labour, which is Brexit jargon for attempting to gain the benefits of EU membership without the obligations.

A veterinary deal will smooth trade between the UK and EU and, crucially, between Britain and Northern Ireland across the Irish Sea border created by the Brexit agreement.

Brussels will demand that the UK aligns with EU rules, which will be subject to European Court of Justice oversight. The same demand is likely to be made over a deal on chemicals regulation, but Labour insists Britain will not be subject to any rules.

Any deal on financial services, which are not part of the existing trade deal, is likely to be met with demands for assurances over UK regulation of the City. Brussels is keen to limit London’s divergence from EU rules for fear of financial shocks from a hub so close to its market.

A deal on foreign policy cooperation is expected to be simpler because the EU views it in its interest in the light of the war in Ukraine. The Tory Government rejected an EU offer on formalising the relationship because it was based on a treaty, which was seen as too similar to EU structures.

In May, British senior diplomats warned that Labour would face tough negotiations at the hands of Brussels.

“Labour [has] to be ready for a really nitty-gritty, difficult discussion because just being nice isn’t going to cut it,” said Sir Julian King, the UK’s final EU commissioner.

A Conservative source told The Telegraph: “Labour are taking no trouble to hide the fact they want to tie Britain into the EU’s orbit – overturning the referendum result and abandoning all the benefits of Brexit, including trade deals with 70 countries and 2,000 ripped-up EU laws.

“But the EU will have a shopping list of what they would want in return – our taxpayers’ money, the return of free movement and the UK being forced to take a quota of illegal migrants from Europe. That’s the opposite of what the public want to see and would take us back to square one.”

The Commission’s chief spokesman said: “We have existing agreements with the UK, those agreements are the ones that actually organise our relationship with the UK, and we have always said that these agreements had to be implemented in full and comprehensively.

“We’re not going to be commenting on every comment that is made in the context of the UK electoral campaign – let me make that absolutely clear. We have an existing situation based on agreements. This is what organises our relationship with the UK. We have discussion fora to manage the relationship and it is in that context we discuss any issue that can come up.”