What Approach Should Labour Take to the 2026 TCA Review?

Summary:

As the opinion polls pointed to a Labour victory in the 2024 UK general election, one question was often asked more than any other: what would a Labour government do regarding Brexit? The party’s leader, Sir Keir Starmer, had ruled out any return to the single market or customs union but had expressed a desire to “improve” the current deal if he became prime minister. Some in his team were hopeful that the pre-agreed review of the Trade and Co-operation Agreement (TCA), which would automatically start in 2026, could fix the “botched deal” that they had inherited from the Conservatives.  More structured co-operation on foreign policy, security and defence, as well as a youth exchange programme, were two examples where member-states would want to see closer ties. But inevitably, any attempt to come closer in the economic sphere would require Labour to be clear with the EU on whether the incoming government would accept some form of jurisdiction of the European Court of Justice (ECJ) – and how it viewed the future of the UK’s regulatory model. For example, would Labour be willing to allow its ministers to align, perhaps initially on a voluntary and unilateral basis, to parts of the EU rulebook where doing so was in the interest of British businesses? Would it choose to keep at least the same level of regulatory protections on the environment and worker rights as the EU? If the answers were a yes – or even a qualified yes – that should be part of Labour’s offer to the other side, along with more co-operation on external security.

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ESO Records

OJ : L149, 2021: Trade and Cooperation Agreement between the European Union (EU) and the United Kingdom (UK) https://www.europeansources.info/record/trade-and-cooperation-agreement-between-the-european-union-eu-and-the-united-kingdom-uk/

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