Author: stephenwilmot1

Happy New Year for 2026!

by stephenwilmot1, posted in Uncategorized

Happy New Year to everyone. I guess this is a time to look back in order to look forward. So what were the ups and downs of 2025 for rejoiners? First, and most important, the relationship between UK and the EU stands in a very different place today from the beginning of 2025. And, on the whole, its a much better place. As is often the case, a common adversary brought the parties closer together. To add to our longtime nemesis, Vladimir Vladimirovich Putin, we now have a the threat of MAGA, embodied by Trump and Vance, whose attitude to Europe is increasingly defined by hostility and contempt. Vance unleashed his bile at a meeting of European leaders in February and subsequently reiterated his views in various places. Trump has followed this up at the end of the year with further denunciations, and with the publication of his  ‘National Security Strategy’, which effectively threatens to intervene in Europe’s politics in favour of far-right parties.

This continuous drumbeat of hostility no doubt helped to push the EU and UK toward a closer relationship. We had the UK/EU summit in May, which followed on from the 2024 Windsor Framework in mapping out areas of closer co-operation. That meeting seems to have been productive, and common interests were agreed relating to key areas such as health standards for food imports, and youth mobility.

Starmer followed this up in July with bilateral meetings, first with Macron, then with Mertz. Again in each case they were clearly working for a closer relationship. The Macron meeting produced the ‘one in one out’ agreement for the movement of asylum seekers. So far this has yielded very modest results. The Mertz meeting produced the grandly-named Kensington Treaty which, to quote the Deutsch-Britische gesellshcaft……

‘…. includes agreements on topics such as security and defence, the economy, energy and climate protection, migration, science, digitalisation, state modernisation and exchanges between citizens. With regard to the mobility of young people, it was agreed, among other things, to reintroduce visa-free travel for school classes and thus facilitate school trips.’

So, pretty wide-ranging. This, (unlike the Macron/Starmer takeaway) is inevitably going to be a slow-burn process, but if the governments  keep up their commitment, it could yield important results.  There was a good deal of media talk at the time about the revival of a ‘core’ alliance of UK, France and Germany as a fulcrum for wider European security co-operation. It remains to be seen whether that grows legs.

But not everything went swimmingly. As our relationship to the EU gets closer,  so that closeness triggered negatives like mutual suspicion, competition and incomprehension. These showed themselves in the current state of our common defence investment negotiations with the EU, which are at something of an impasse, evidently a result of the old chestnut, Anglo-French rivalry. This will not be easy to resolve, but it will have to be resolved, and soon. There are also tensions over the shape and extent of the Youth Mobility arrangements under discussion, and over its relationship to the agreement of common veterinary standards for food and livestock. The path is not a smooth one.

On the other hand, the great positive of the year is our return to the Erasmus+ programme, which opens the Higher Education Institutions of Europe to UK students (and vice versa). This is scheduled for 2027. In the long term this is a crucial cultural achievement. It ensures that a new generation of young Britons will experience Europe as part of their natural home territory. Its an exciting development, but, paradoxically, its best outcome will be for study in the EU to become unexciting, routine and ordinary for the younger generation. When that happens, we are getting somewhere.

And throughout the year there has been a steady drizzle of evidence of the economic damage that Brexit is doing to the UK; evidence provided by the BBC (trying hard to be neutral), the Bank of England, the Office of Budget Responsibility, the Centre for Business Prosperity and many others.

On the local front, Derby branch members leafletted in Derby and Belper during 2025. On this website branch members also admonished Starmer for ignoring the petition to hold a referendum on EU membership, and warned him of the dangers of a hasty trade deal with the US. Subsequent events have certainly vindicated that.

So maybe the path ahead into 2026 is a little clearer, but it remains steep and treacherous.

Where we are. End of 2025

by stephenwilmot1, posted in Blog

Several recent news items suggest that progress is being made toward a deeper rapprochement with the EU. Most notably, the UK is back in the EU’s Erasmus + scheme, meaning that British students will be able to attend universities in the EU, and vice versa for EU students to the UK. So the upcoming British generation of young adults are having something of their European heritage returned to them at last. The importance of that move can be gauged from the vituperative response of the daily Telegraph and the Daily Mail to those developments.

It looks as if there is also diplomatic progress on Youth Mobility. Less tangible, but equally important, we seem to be seeing slow shifts in thinking within the Labour Party. That showed through in recent remarks by David Lammy. If something like this rate can be maintained through till 2029, we can hope for some real movement. It has felt glacially slow at times.  But even at that pace a lot can happen in three and a half years.

So what will happen to all that progress if Reform win in 2029. The odds for that happening seem not to be changing much as time passes. Things will almost certainly get tighter as we approach the election, but Reform are starting from an exceptionally strong position in the polls. So we need to plan for a Reform government in 2029.

Reform may reverse all progress that has been achieved, and distance us again from the EU, at least as much as Johnson and Frost did in 2020, and perhaps more. That would fit their declared programme. But we can’t just wait for the worst. It may be possible to salvage something of these gains through a campaign to mobilize support for them among those who stand to lose most by their cancellation. Links that offer a clearly arguable economic advantage would be the best choice in the long run, but by 2029 they won’t have had much impact, or gained many friends among the general public. Culturally-oriented links such as Erasmus and Youth Mobility might be worth a fight however. Certainly for Erasmus there may be a student constituency by 2029 who had high hopes of study abroad, and would be vocally unhappy about having that snatched away. But also those programmes may not produce too much hostility from most Reform people. Free movement is the real hate; and that particular can will need to be kicked further down the road.

The context is changing in other ways. By 2029 Europe might start to look a little different, and a little more congenial to some Reform people. We may well get Bardella in the Elysee Palace in 2027, for instance. It will be a challenge for British rejoiners to adjust to that, but it might also be an incentive for Reform to get a little closer to France. Bardella is a Eurosceptic but he isn’t a Frexiter, and according to Steve Anglesey in the New World Newsletter on December 11th, he has expressed some favourable views about the UK going back into the EU. There might be an interesting angle there for Farage who has just had an (apparently) friendly meeting with Bardella.  The prospect of a more right-wing Europe was discussed in this blog in July 2024 and the challenge remains.  The Bardella model of the EU is likely to be very different from the present arrangements, and much less congenial. But still, its better than the AfD version, which wants Germany out of the EU completely.

What if we look westward, away from Europe? In times past the UK’s close relationships worked in two directions, Our friends in Europe and our friends in the US could compensate one another to some degree, so a cooling on one side might be balanced by a warming on the other. However, the US, though technically perhaps still an ally, is certainly no longer a friend. Trump and his administration are hostile to the UK in all but military terms, as they are to the rest of Europe. The sentiments expressed by Vice-President Vance’s in his speech in February 2025  have now solidified into a policy agenda for the Trump administration through their recently-published National Security Strategy. The section on Europe is fairly short (its a world overview) and its very hostile; intensely hostile to supranational bodies such as the EU; and to migration; and to cultural change. The policy document expresses a clear intention to interfere in Europe’s affairs, support nationalist parties and break up the EU.

What that implies for the UK is not entirely clear, but it looks very likely that Trump will make considerable efforts to prevent the UK from getting closer to the EU. Its easy to imagine a scenario in the minds of Trump’s team where the rest of Europe falls into the Russian sphere of influence, partly through electoral politics (think AfD) partly through military intimidation; while the UK (and perhaps Ireland) fall into the US sphere, again partly through electoral politics (think Reform) partly through economic intimidation.

This is not an attractive prospect. If The EU and the UK reject the Trump prescription, they are going to find themselves caught between two hostile powers, one east, one west, both far more militarized and aggressive than Europe. It is not going to be comfortable for us in the UK to be part of that squeezed middle. But we need to consider the alternatives. The US and Russia don’t want allies, they want puppets and patsies.  Likewise China. That is something we should all be thinking about. Bardella and Farage no doubt see Putin and Trump as very useful in their present campaigning. But after 2027 and 2029 respectively (assuming they are in power) they will need to think hard about what friends and allies they really need. So shall we all.

Lib Dems to force vote on creating new customs union with EU.

by stephenwilmot1, posted in National Events

An interesting initiative from the Lib Dems. The Commons vote was set to be 2 weeks after the budget, so its soon.. This won’t change government policy in the near future, but it is a Lib Dem device to reveal support among pro-EU MPs.

Rowena Mason of the Guardian quotes Davey as saying:

“The chancellor has admitted the damage Brexit has done to our economy, including burying British businesses in mountains of red tape, yet the government is refusing to take the steps needed to fix it. A customs union with the EU is the single biggest lever this government could pull to turbocharge the UK economy. We will work with MPs across parliament who want a closer trading relationship with Europe – to cut red tape, boost growth, and properly fund our public services.”

Rowena Mason says that The Lib Dem plans propose a bespoke customs union with the EU by 2030, suggesting it could be similar to the one it has had with Turkey since 1995.

“Call a public inquiry into Russian influence on UK politics & democracy”

by stephenwilmot1, posted in National Events

“On November 25th Nathan Gill, the Reform UK Welsh Leader was sentenced to ten and a half years in prison for taking Russian bribes in the European Parliament. Please sign and share this petition requesting an independent judicial public inquiry“

The above petition is a timely reminder of the need for the European Democracy Shield just mentioned. It exposes one of the routes through which disinformation from bad actors can penetrate our political system. It’s a reminder also of our need to commit to Europe’s collective security in the face of this threat. 

The European Democracy Shield

by stephenwilmot1, posted in Uncategorized

The EU is taking measures to protect Europe’s information space against bad actors. It has set up an information initiative to that end, with the following announcement on November 12th.

“Today, the EU announced the establishment of the European Democracy Shield. The Shield, developed jointly by the European Commission and the European External Action Service, has a robust external dimension and will help empower strong and resilient democracies. Under its first pillar on safeguarding the integrity of the information space, the Joint Communication formulates the EU’s necessary response to the threat of foreign information manipulation and interference (FIMI). With this initiative the EU strives to make democracies more resilient against information attacks and interference coming from its adversaries.”

More information can be found here and here.

The Economic Impact of Brexit

by stephenwilmot1, posted in National Events

The National Bureau of Economic Research is an independent economic research institute based in the US. This November it produced an analysis of the economic impact of Brexit on the UK economy. Its more damning even than other recent negative reports. I quote the NBER summary below:

Note the impact of Brexit on investment in the UK. Its one of the big weaknesses in the UK economy – we have been bottom of the G7 league for some years. Its what falling behind looks like.

Find the NBER with more information here.

“Authors: Nicholas Bloom, Philip Bunn, Paul Mizen, Pawel Smietanka & Gregory Thwaites

Working Paper 34459

DOI 10.3386/w34459

Issue DateNovember 2025 

This paper examines the impact of the UK’s decision to leave the European Union (Brexit) in 2016. Using almost a decade of data since the referendum, we combine simulations based on macro data with estimates derived from micro data collected through our Decision Maker Panel survey. These estimates suggest that by 2025, Brexit had reduced UK GDP by 6% to 8%, with the impact accumulating gradually over time. We estimate that investment was reduced by between 12% and 18%, employment by 3% to 4% and productivity by 3% to 4%. These large negative impacts reflect a combination of elevated uncertainty, reduced demand, diverted management time, and increased misallocation of resources from a protracted Brexit process. Comparing these with contemporary forecasts – providing a rare macro example to complement the burgeoning micro-literature of social science predictions – shows that these forecasts were accurate over a 5-year horizon, but they underestimated the impact over a decade“.

What does Europe mean to you?

by stephenwilmot1, posted in Blog

This is the title of a video recently put out by the European Movement. Find it here. It presents a word-cloud of positive associations expressed by a selection of vox pop respondents about the idea of Europe. ‘Freedom; Culture; Sunshine’- on it goes.  And many respondents also express a sad awareness of what we have lost through Brexit. This is aimed at people who share a positive view of Europe but may not know about the work of the European Movement. It concludes with a bit of recruitment for the EM. Presented by Caroline Lucas, co-president of the EM. They ask that we try to propagate the video as widely as possible.

Petition to Co-operate with the EU on Environmental Protection

by stephenwilmot1, posted in National Events

The European Movement has posted a petition on its website to support its call to the UK government for closer co-operation with the EU on environmental matters. It has produced a report which proposes four broad headings for co-operation.  These are discussed in detail. Also four specific actions are proposed to move this forward.

The four broad headings are:

1. Working together for climate safety and energy security

2. Building Europe’s Grid: Interconnectors and Joint Energy Planning

3. Alignment on Environmental Standards where it leads to higher standards

4. Rejoining Strategic Programmes and Agencies

The four specific actions to move this forward are:

  • To link Emissions Trading Systems and rejoin EU internal electricity market.
  • To join North Seas Energy Cooperation for offshore energy development.
  • To align regulations on chemicals, waste, air quality, and ecodesign.
  • To rejoin the European Environment Agency and LIFE programme.

The advantages of international co-operation are clear, and it is in the interests of the UK to co-operate with our nearest neighbours on this. So please sign the petition.

Breaking the Brexit Silence

by stephenwilmot1, posted in Blog, National Events

In recent weeks a number of senior figures in the UK have finally come out and said that Brexit has damaged the UK economy. Keir Starmer, Rachel Reeves, Wes Streeting and most recently Andrew Bailey, Head of the Bank of England, have all acknowledged at different points during October, that Brexit is doing lasting harm to the UK economy. The importance of this development lies in what went before: the relative silence and avoidance that has been practiced by senior labour politicians and public officials since Brexit happened. The Brexit omerta, the ‘elephant in the room’ that we can’t mention, has been a huge frustration to pro-Europeans looking to move closer to Europe. But the taboo is finally being broken. No doubt Starmer, Reeves and Streeting co-ordinated their comments, and no doubt their decision was based on their view that the climate has now changed sufficiently for a more open debate at national level. Let’s hope they are right about that. But what about Bailey? Was he part of the plan? In some ways his was the most telling intervention.

There are risks in this. One of the problems in the 2016 referendum campaign was the widely held view that the ‘establishment’ were in favour of remaining in the EU, and Joe Public should accordingly be wary of pro-remain arguments, particularly those with a ‘project fear’ flavour. Brexit was presented as the democratic option, and the choice for optimists and patriots. We don’t want that perception to creep in again. Starmer et al need to make it clear that they are responding to popular concerns about the effects of Brexit rather than elite ‘I told you so’s. Moving back toward Europe needs to be presented as the path of hope and optimism.

What about the ECHR?

by stephenwilmot1, posted in Blog, National Events

The issue of the European Convention on Human Rights seems to be coming to a head as the Tories and Reform call for the withdrawal of the UK. The European Movement has posted an open letter to Hilary Benn, the relevant minister, calling on him to support the UK’s continued membership. The ECHR issue offers easy prey for the brexiteers in their project to widen the gulf between the UK and the EU. Withdrawal from the ECHR would certainly produce that result, both in generally, and also specifically in relation to the position of Northern Ireland under the EU-UK Trade and Co-operation Agreement, and the Good Friday Agreement. It would be a damaging move, so please sign the open letter.

Its clear that the debate around the ECHR has been inflamed by the involvement of the European Court of Human Rights in asylum appeals. Given the extent of small boats anxiety in the UK, there is a danger of a hostile head of steam building up toward the ECHR among people who are not otherwise anti-Europe; something that has not been widespread hitherto. This could be a problem for the rejoin movement.

What is NOT being widely publicized is the fact that the UK government is pressing for ECHR rules to be amended to reduce the likelihood of the court’s appeals decisions undermining  UK government efforts with regard to illegal immigration. According to LBC this proposal to reform the ECHR is already supported by 16 European states (out of 25 signatory states) and has good prospects of success. But it needs to cut through to public awareness. The ECHR performs a very positive role in many areas, and its far better for the UK to push on with reforming it, rather than yet again pull out of an important European institution. As LBC points out, the only country so far to have left the ECHR is Russia. That should give us pause for thought.