Asked in 2020 whether the UK would accept aligning with EU business regulations, Michael Gove, the then Cabinet Office minister, said bluntly: “We will not trade away our sovereignty.”
Sitting next to his Labour successor, Nick Thomas-Symonds, on Wednesday, the now editor of the Spectator was more circumspect.
Asked if he accepted Thomas-Symonds’sargument that so-called dynamic alignment was good for the economy, Gove replied with a smile: “I will wait to see the details before making a definitive judgment.”
Underpinning Gove’s response was not just the politeness of a host – Thomas-Symonds gave his speech at the Spectator’s premises – but a realisation that voters have moved on since 2020.
Thomas-Symonds’s speech was the most assertively pro-European he has given since entering government last year as Keir Starmer’s chief European negotiator.
The Cabinet Office minister said he wanted to sign a deal to export food and drink products to the EU without boundaries, something the government says would generate £5.1bn a year in economic benefits by 2040.
Small businesses currently pay £200 for a licence every time they want to export a shipment of agricultural goods – costs the government has promised to eliminate.
But he also talked openly about the benefits of accepting EU standards for the foreseeable future, even if the UK now has no say in setting them. “We can then start reducing the checks on the Irish Sea, which is clearly of benefit to trade,” he argued.
Most eye-catchingly, after months of being coy over the prospect of a youth mobility scheme with the EU, Thomas-Symonds embraced the possibility with open arms.
“When you are providing those opportunities for young British people, I’m very excited about the scheme,” he said. “I think it’s going to be fantastic.”
He insisted the debate had changed since Gove helped lead the successful Leave campaign. “Last week was GCSE results day – young people opening envelopes that helped decide the shape of their future,” he said. “Most of them weren’t even eight years old when the referendum happened. That era is gone.”
If Gove’s silence on dynamic alignment was notable, the reluctance of Nigel Farage to get drawn into this debate has been even more so.
In May, when Starmer announced his outline agreement with the EU, Farage was not even in the country.
The Reform leader also failed to mention the issue during a press conference in Edinburgh on Wednesday. Instead, the party put out a statement from a spokesperson accusing the government of “cosying up to the EU and leaving us entangled in reams of retained EU law”.
Labour officials are open about trying to draw Farage into a fight they believe he cannot win.
“Since we signed our reset deal, Farage has sat there like a lemon and chucked out a few source quotes to his core audience,” said one. “It is about time he answered questions on his approach to EU relations.”
Judging by Farage’s silence over the issue on Wednesday, the Reform leader can read the polls as well as Thomas-Symonds.
A survey by More in Common on Wednesday showed 54% of voters now believe that closer relations with the EU would be good for Britain, while only 18% of voters disagree.
Voters are even willing to undermine British sovereignty to boost the economy, with 44% saying the government should prioritise the economy, compared with 38% who say it should focus on sovereignty.
Luke Tryl, the executive director of More in Common, said: “Rather than wanting politicians to re-litigate Brexit, most want the focus to be on practical discussions that work out how to balance the economic benefits of a closer relationship with protecting national control.”
There are limits to Labour’s increasingly vocal desire to be closer to the EU, however.
Thomas-Symonds would not contemplate re-entering the single market or the customs union. “It isn’t about revisiting the issues of the past, it’s about a ruthlessly pragmatic assessment of the national interest today,” he said.
There are also limits to how successful an electoral strategy it could be. While voters do want to trade more closely with Britain’s European neighbours, they care about the issue far less than the one Farage has spent the last two days talking about: irregular migration.
According to the latest figures from the pollster YouGov, 51% of voters put immigration among their top three priorities, compared with just 10% who list “Britain leaving the EU”.
