Why Remainer Keir Starmer has every reason to thank Donald Trump and Brexit
Being outside the European Union may enable to the UK to make a successful case for avoiding whisky tariffs
Life is full of rich ironies but few thought last year Sir Keir Starmer would have every reason to thank President Trump 2.0 and Brexit. As the Prime Minister considers the political waves he is now floundering in, he needs every straw he can reach out and grasp if his prospects are to improve so Labour is not sunk at the next election.
A new splinter party formed by Jeremy Corbyn, the former Labour leader – twice proudly championed by Starmer in the 2017 and 2019 elections – now threatens him from the left. Economic prospects are looking bleak, with faltering growth causing thoughts of recession to resurface.
Inflation remains stubbornly around three per cent, public borrowing is increasing and tax revenues are below expectations while the most generous taxpayers continue to leave the country for more affordable climes.
Both junior and resident doctors are about to strike in England and Wales, unemployment is rising and new hires are falling. Ed Miliband’s rush to net zero is seeing refineries close in Grangemouth and Lincolnshire with countless other industries being priced out of existence.
A turbulent world
Meanwhile, Starmer’s pledge to end the influx of people being trafficked across the Channel is on trend to see the highest number of illegal landings since the Normans in 1066. As tensions in some towns and cities rise, a fear of summer riots is now taking hold of authorities, causing at least one special police unit to be established to monitor signs of unrest in social media.
That’s just the Home Front. The need to try and resolve the wars in the Middle East and Ukraine continues to dominate international affairs, masking the continued threat of China’s expansionist strategies.
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For all Starmer was a devout advocate of remaining in the European Union back in 2016, then supported having a second referendum (while being against another in Scotland), and is now trying his best to reset relations with the EU that has seen him give away fishing rights worth £12 billion until 2038, it is to the altar of Brexit that he must kneel down and pray in thanks.
It was only through Brexit that he has been able to deliver VAT on independent schools, bring forward the nationalisation of the British railway network, continue to ban entry to Britain by EU criminals who have served a year or more in jail, give preference to British companies for public sector contracts – and many other controversial policies Labour has embraced sovereign control to deliver.
READ MORE: Donald Trump makes Scotch whisky 'didn't know' comment as he meets Sir Keir Starmer at Turnberry
Cultish adherence to increasing energy costs
Even in trade, the tired regurgitation of the discredited Office for Budget Responsibility summary of counterfactual estimates (by definition unprovable) suggesting a 4 per cent loss in UK GDP by the end of the decade were shown last week to be doom-mongering. The latest Office for National Statistics figures revealed, while UK goods exports had dipped compared to pre-Covid expectations, there was no significant difference between EU and non-EU export trends – meaning the root cause of our problems are the uncompetitive cost of making anything here and poor productivity levels.
The stats suggest our real problem is the cultish adherence to driving up energy costs – industrial and domestic – so we no longer make as many cars, produce less metal, extract less oil and gas (down from 53 million tonnes in 2019 to 34 million in 2023), and so on. We cannot export things we no longer make. Anything to do with energy costs, from commuting to construction, is likely to be in decline.
Fortunately Brexit has allowed the UK to have better trade deals with Japan, Australia, Singapore, Peru, Vietnam and just last week Starmer signed off a trade deal with India – a prize that the EU has failed to achieve in over 15 years of negotiating.
Now Starmer is able to crow about the great US-UK deal he has struck with The Donald, all because of the Brexit he so religiously castigated. Whatever one thinks of Donald Trump’s policy of using muscular tariffs to bring about a change of attitudes among the many free-riding European nations who live off the US taxpayers’ defence dollars, the fact is indisputable – the UK has fared better than the EU. Were we in the EU we would have met its fate – not one obtained by Starmer’s government.
EU’s non-tariff barriers
For instance, Ireland's baseline tariff to export into the US is the EU's tariff of 15 per cent and will be 50 per cent higher than the UK's 10 per cent. It is the same for every other EU member.
The EU has accepted its trade with the US results in too large a surplus and requires rebalancing. Strangely it does not admit to this being a problem with the UK, where again it runs a large surplus in goods.
We are not imposing tariffs on the EU yet all sorts of impediments to trade are erected by the EU through non-tariff barriers and Brexit punishments, such as the obstinacy to agree to cultural access visas. Note how no such regulations are imposed upon the US – so why does the EU insist on applying them on us?
The EU had previously threatened a trade war with Trump. But following the reaction to the EU-US deal in European capitals – “scandalous… a disaster… with not one concession from the American side…” said leading European politician Guy Verhofstadt – the truth about its exaggerated influence is apparent.
Our US deal could still improve yet, with President Trump promising to look at the issue of Scotch whisky. When our single malts were collateral damage in the EU’s trade war with Boeing (over EU subsidised loans to Airbus), it cost our distilleries £500m in lost sales. If being outside the EU allows us to make a successful case for avoiding whisky tariffs, Remainer politicians like Starmer and John Swinney will no doubt claim a victory – but it will be Trump and Brexit we have to thank.
Brian Monteith, a former MEP and MSP, is editor of ThinkScotland.org
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