PM should beware, the EU beast could easily turn on him

A REAL-LIFE Rip Van Winkle who had just awoken this week after a decade of slumber would think nothing had changed.

- Ross Clark

Here was a British Prime Minister lined up with other European leaders outside sumptuous Blenheim Palace. At first glance, it appeared to be just another EU summit like the ones Britain regularly used to host while we were still nembers of the bloc.

Keir Starmer keeps telling us, of course, that he doesn't want to rejoin the EU, nor even the single market or the customs union. But he did rather seem to be enjoying hosting a summit of the EFEuropean Political Community -a talking shop set up two years ago under the initiative of French President Emmanuel Macron in response to Russia's invasion of Ukraine.

Although the EPC has nothing formally to do with the EU, Starmer used the opportunity to announce what he describes as a "reset" of links between Britain and the EU. From now on, he tells us, Britain and the EU will have a more constructive relationship.

For months, he has been talking about a fundamental rewrite of the UK-EU Trade and Cooperation Agreement which is supposed to guarantee free trade but which, as British exporters have come to realise, is full of hidden nasties which force anyone selling goods to the EU to jump through all kinds of regulatory hoops.