In anticipation of what all observers expect to be a bloodbath for Labour over the coming day or so – out of office in Wales, handing the SNP the beginning of a third decade of office in Scotland, slaughtered from both left and right across England’s councils – what remains of Team Starmer has been briefing heavily of a fresh reset.
It is, by my count, the third major reset of a government yet to mark its second birthday, which is not usually a sign of something going well.
First, there was Starmer’s ‘100 days’ reset in October 2024, which saw the PM replace chief of staff Sue Gray with Morgan McSweeney to “rectify political misfires”. It was a move which went swimmingly until the latter insisting on appointing a close friend of the planet’s most notorious paedophile to the UK’s most prestigious diplomatic posting.
Then there was the ‘phase two’ reset of September 2025, in which Starmer sought to show a shift of focus from stabilisation to “delivery, delivery, delivery” by shuffling Peter Kyle to the Business department to general public indifference.
Now comes Reset 3: European Return, with the Starmerites aiming to head off any coup attempt following the expected shellacking with a promise of “big, expansive and ambitious conversations” with the European Union in the coming weeks and months.
“None of the red lines in the manifesto are about to be ripped up, but if you are asking whether there are big conversations going on about where the country might be in 10 or 15 years’ time, then the answer is yes,” one cabinet member tells the i newspaper.
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“You cannot drive a car on a journey with every twist and turn and expect to end up at a particular destination unless you know what that destination is.”
Those red lines were that the UK would not rejoin the single market or the customs union or return to free movement of people. But beyond that, everything appears to be up for grabs: depending on your media outlet of choice, it’s greater alignment with the single market, a youth mobility deal with no hard cap on numbers, a more Swiss-like deal, possibly, maybe, overt long-term movement towards a return to the bloc outright.
Unlike Starmer’s previous resets, real policy movement is touted. And here are three reasons why the PM should go ahead, and fast: because he should, because he can and because he has no other option.
Because he should. Brexit has inflicted serious economic harm on Britain. Both Rachel Reeves and Starmer himself feel increasingly comfortable saying so. The UK can no longer ignore the economic benefits of closer ties with the huge trading bloc on our doorstep.
Because he can. Nearly three in five respondents (59%) said they would back rejoining the EU in a new referendum, according to a survey for the Daily Mirror by Deltapoll this week.
The opposition to rebuilding bridges with the EU is weak, declining and increasingly relevant. Yes, the briefing about moving towards Europe has been met with predictable headlines from the right wing press – “Brexit fury erupts as Keir Starmer plots closer ties to EU after bruising local election” was the Express’s take – but those papers are on the wane, their readers are literally dying and it’s entirely possible some won’t even exist by the next general election.
And that “fury”, by the way? None. The paper didn’t quote a single person expressing anger (Jacob Rees-Mogg, though, has been whingeing about how it will mean “getting rid of tumble dryers”, which is not the killer argument he thinks it is).
Which is another reason why Starmer can do this: the actual ideological true believers in Brexit are few and far between and were never as numerous as he thought in the first place. The PM’s eggshell-treading attitude was always informed by a misguided belief that the Brexit referendum was an article of faith by the Red Wall, rather than a handy way to give the establishment a kick up the backside.
The opposition to moving towards the EU is barely worth the candle. The Lib Dems, Greens, SNP and Plaid Cymru will be with him. The Conservatives are so irrelevant that Kemi Badenoch has spent this campaign shoring up her few remaining supporters by banging on about the triple lock.
And Reform? They’ll make a hullabaloo about it. But is Starmer really so unsure of his argument on this that he’s scared of a public scrap with the political wing of the Thai cryptocurrency industry?
And finally, because he has no option. If he’s going to go – and he will, sometime – why not go out fighting on one of the few points of principle he actually, genuinely appears to hold?
Otherwise, what has been the point? Why was he ever prime minister? Why not go in hard on this and at least have stood for something? He should, he could and, as the coming days might prove, he doesn’t have a choice.
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