Enda Brady: Keir Starmer has set the clock running on Britain rejoining the European Union
Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer and US President Donald Trump during a press conference at Chequers, near Aylesbury in Buckinghamshire, on day two of the president's second state visit to the UK. Picture date: Thursday September 18, 2025.
Donald Trump has taken a blowtorch to the so-called ‘special relationship’ with Britain in such spectacular fashion that the upshot is a seismic shift from Keir Starmer towards the European Union.
The British prime minister gave an address to his nation this week that a lot of people either missed or didn’t want to listen to. The bottom line? Britain will be moving closer to a union it voted to leave in that ill-fated referendum in 2016.
America and Israel’s war on Iran and their attempts to bully Britain into joining appear to have been the final straw for Starmer.
"It is increasingly clear that as the world continues down this volatile path, our long-term national interest requires closer partnership with our allies in Europe and with the European Union," he said.
Wow. Think about that for a minute. He has effectively set the clock running on a path towards the UK eventually rejoining.
There was a blunt assessment too of what Brexit has done to Britain, with Starmer admitting it has caused “deep damage” to their economy.
The results are there for all to see. A flatlining economy, hardly any growth anywhere, and a diminished place in not just the world order, but in Europe. For all his faults and unpopularity, Starmer should be saluted for telling his people some hard truths.
They may not like what he said, but at least he had the balls to say it to them.
For months, he tried to be a Trump ‘whisperer’, hand delivering that envelope from King Charles in the Oval Office last year and offering an unprecedented second state visit.
Trump duly arrived in September and was given the royal treatment, only to backstab Britain in a matter of weeks — and the vitriol has continued at pace after Starmer made clear that this war on Iran is not the UK’s battle to fight.
Starmer had spent so long sitting on the fence trying to balance the relationship between his country and Europe and America, it’s a wonder he didn’t get splinters. But something big changed this week, something seismic. He has given up on Trump’s America and wants to focus on Europe and allies he can trust.
The long-term impact is going to be huge — whisper it, but the Brits are moving back into Europe.
By every measure, Brexit has been a disaster for the UK. Away from the economic tumbleweed it has caused, just look at the migration and asylum statistics.
The number of migrants arriving on dinghies from France last year topped 41,000.
2019 was the last year before the UK formally left the EU in January 2020 and the number then was 1,843. Around £8m a day of taxpayers’ cash is being spent on accommodation for these people.
Nobody has put that figure on the side of a big red bus, have they?!
So much for all the talk of ‘taking back control’ of their borders. Brexit has destroyed Britain. If you’ve visited this place recently and can remember coming here before the vote, there’s absolutely no comparison. Even London itself has gone backwards — big time.
What amazes me now is that you will never find anyone in the UK who is prepared to admit they voted for Brexit. Where have they all gone? There were 17.4m people who voted to leave.
Now? Not so much as a peep out of them, though they lurk in the comments sections and will no doubt come for me when they read this.
Starmer has been patiently working on rebuilding relationships in Europe and trying to ensure that Britain can find a pathway back to the country it once was. Strengthening friendships with Macron and France, regularly meeting the German chancellor and consistently standing up for Ukraine.
In a word? Leading.
Just last week he was in Helsinki for a private dinner with the leaders of nine other European countries including Finland, Sweden, Norway, Iceland, the Netherlands, and the Baltic nations.
I’m told the dinner was completely private with just the PMs around the table. No advisers, no spin doctors, and no hangers-on. You can guess what the conversation centred around. President Trump — and how to handle him.
There is a school of thought, too, that this transatlantic chill will not end in three years’ time, assuming Trump doesn’t try to stand again. The Make America Great Again (Maga) movement is now firmly entrenched in the American political psyche, and the Democrats still can’t get their act together, so what follows may be Trump lite or a turbo-charged version. President Vance, anyone?
Europe’s key leaders all offered the hand of friendship to Trump’s America in the early days, and they’ve all been burned. The only exceptions are Hungary’s Viktor Orban and Giorgia Meloni of Italy, both right-wingers who subscribe to the same ideology as Trump and his people.
So it’s no surprise Starmer has decided to move on from America and point Britain back towards Europe, where it belongs. In terms of the economy, defence, and security, it’s just a natural fit.
His words this week were telling, and needed. In a way, he has almost started the conversation that needs to happen ahead of the next UK general election in 2029.
Should Britain rejoin the EU? That question won’t be on the ballot paper in three years, but rest assured, a future Labour government (or one in coalition with the Liberal Democrats, to keep Reform and Nigel Farage out of power) will be looking at this.
Labour’s manifesto at the last election in July 2024 stated that there would be no return to the single market, but a nosediving economy and the fallout from the Iran war is leaving them no choice.
Just look at what Starmer said in his address from No.10 Downing Street last week.
"I do think that we should strengthen our co-operation on defence, security, energy, emissions, and the economy.
"I'm ambitious that we can do more in relation to the single market, because I think that's hugely in our economic interests."
For ambitious, read: ‘Yes please!’.
So this will be the first step on the path to closer integration with the EU, and no doubt more measures will come as Starmer tries to get the UK working and moving again. So much here doesn’t work anymore, and so much of that malaise stems from Brexit.
The so-called ‘Project Fear’ turned out to be a hugely costly ‘Project Fact’, and the British have been paying the price now for a decade.
Enough is enough, and Starmer appears to have accepted this. When things are this bad, something has to give. The only question is whether this Labour leader will survive long enough to deliver on it — but make no mistake, but someone has to.
Britain simply can’t afford to stay away from Europe any longer.
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