UK deal with Europe will not return to 'arguments of the past', minister says

The UK's future new deal with the EU will be a break from "debates and arguments of the past," the UK's chief negotiator, Nick Thomas-Symonds, has said, pledging that growth would be the highest priority of the talks.

- Jessica Elgot Heather Stewart Washington Richard Partington

The statement came as Keir Starmer held talks with the European Commission's president, Ursula von der Leyen, in London, as momentum builds towards the crucial EU-UK summit in May.

In the most positive language yet about the talks, No 10 said Starmer and Von der Leyen agreed to aim for "as ambitious a package as possible".

"The prime minister was clear that he will seize any opportunity to improve the lives of working people in the United Kingdom, drive growth and keep people safe - and he believes a strengthened partnership between the UK and the EU will achieve this," No 10 said after the meeting.

Amid pressure from MPs to agree a youth mobility deal despite a cabinet split on the proposal, Thomas-Symonds said in an article for the Guardian that the negotiations should move on from the turmoil of the Brexit years. "Pursuing a new partnership with the EU is about meeting the needs of our times," the Cabinet Office minister wrote. "This is not about ideology or returning to the divisions of the past, but about ruthless pragmatism and what works in the national interest."

The government is expected to seek far closer regulatory alignment with the EU on trade, a key source of division in the Brexit years, where Eurosceptics sought the furthest possible divergence from Brussels.