The EU has blockedย a UK bid to join a pan-European trade pact because it’s concerned that Labour isn’t doing enough to move closer to Europe and face down the threat from Nigel Farage’s Reform UK, the Rejoin EU Party says.
The European Commission told the UK it won’t currently support its potential membership of the Pan-Euro-Mediterranean (PEM) convention amid concerns that it would increase the risk of products unfairly qualifying for low-tariff access to the bloc, according to unidentified sources cited by the Financial Times.
However, a Brussels source has told the Rejoin EU Party that the commission is also reluctant to grant the UK access to such schemes because of polls showing the likelihood of a Reform-led government in four years’ time – and that if the UK wants such access, it needs to become more pro-EU.
Rejoin EU Party deputy leader and former MEP John Stevens said: “The commission has blocked British access to the PEM – a step which would markedly reduce trade frictions in some of our key supply chains for products such as fruit and veg – amid growing concerns over the prospect of a Reform government.
A source in Brussels told me that Labour’s internal crisis has convinced the commission that Keir Starmer isn’t doing enough to counter Reform and that the risks of Farage tearing up any such arrangements after the next UK general election are too great to countenance.
The Rejoin EU Party believes that instead of trying to counter right-wing populists over issues such as immigration, Labour needs to take the first basic steps to boosting the economy by re-joining the single market and customs union.
Doing this as soon as possible would quickly ease Labour’s economic problems and plug the ยฃ40bn-a year black hole in the government’s finances,” Stevens said.
It would have the added benefit of neutralising the threat from Farage, who is offering nothing apart from the prospect of the UK becoming a vassal state of Trump’s US and Putin’s Russia.
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