The prime minister has been urged to disregard the protests of Kemi Badenoch and Nigel Farage ahead of a major UK-EU summit.
Ed Davey, the leader of the Liberal Democrats, has called on the government to be “bold and ambitious for our country” and to ignore “dinosaurs fighting old battles”.
British and European negotiators worked overnight on Monday to hash out a deal before the prime minister appears at a press conference in the afternoon alongside European Commission chief Ursula von der Leyen and European Council president Antonio Costa.
According to reports in recent days, a deal is set to include an announcement on defence and security, which could feature an agreement allowing British firms access to a £125 billion EU defence fund.
Agreements on allowing British travellers to use e-gates at European airports, cutting red tape on food exports and setting up a youth mobility scheme with the EU are also reported to be on the table.
The Liberal Democrats are calling for a new trade deal with the EU, including a UK-EU customs union, which the party points to as the “single biggest thing ministers could do to boost growth”.
In comments released overnight on Monday, Davey said: “Keir Starmer must be bold and ambitious for our country in today’s summit. Voters were promised change by this government, and they have to deliver.
“Being truly ambitious, including a new UK-EU customs union, would be the single biggest thing ministers could do to boost growth and fix the public finances.
“Anything less would be a choice to limit growth, harming living standards and hitting the NHS and other public services.
“The prime minister must ignore the dinosaurs fighting old battles, who want to drag us back to the destructive Brexit wars of the past, and focus on getting the best deal possible for the UK.”
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Farage’s Reform UK has already dismissed the UK-EU summit as “just posturing”.
Speaking on Monday morning, Reform deputy leader Richard Tice told Sky News: “There’s a deal basically being done to surrender some of the opportunities from Brexit.
“It’s quite clear that a scheme dressed up as youth mobility will actually be a return to freedom of movement in all but name — that’s not what the British people want, and they confirmed that when they voted significantly for Reform just a few weeks ago.
“It’ll be a surrender of our ability to make our own rules, instead we’re going to go back to basically being a rule taker from the EU.”
Meanwhile, Conservative leader Kemi Badenoch has looked to issue a “warning” about the UK-EU summit.
She said: “I am very worried about what Keir Starmer has negotiated with the EU. We’ve seen time and again that when Labour negotiates, Britain loses.
“The India trade deal handed tax breaks to Indian workers. Starmer’s talks with Trump left us with worse US tariffs than we had in March. And most embarrassingly of all, the prime minister went to Albania to announce a ‘deportation hubs’ plan, and the Albanian prime minister stood next to Starmer and told the media he wasn’t interested.
“Labour should have used this review of our EU trade deal to secure new wins for Britain, such as an EU-wide agreement on Brits using e-gates on the continent. Instead, it sounds like we’re giving away our fishing quotas, becoming a rule-taker from Brussels once again and getting free movement by the back door. This isn’t a reset, it’s a surrender.”
The Lib Dems wrote to Labour MPs over the weekend, urging them to back closer trade ties with the EU, which the party insists would boost the public finances and avoid “savage” cuts to disability benefits and the winter fuel payment.
In an open letter to Labour MPs, Lib Dem foreign affairs spokesperson Calum Miller wrote: “Monday’s summit can deliver vital new opportunities for constituents across our country. That’s why Liberal Democrats have been calling on the government and the European Commission to approach these talks with genuine ambition and bold ideas.
“We’ve been encouraged by the prime minister’s willingness to engage with the EU in a substantive way, particularly when compared with the actively hostile and damaging approach taken by the previous Conservative governments.
“Indeed, Conservative and Reform MPs have made clear this week that they have no interest in repairing our relationship with the UK’s largest trading partner.
“This is despite the agreement amongst economists that an improved relationship with Europe could unlock a huge boost to the Treasury. New analysis suggests that the benefit could be as substantial as an estimated £25 billion.
“This revenue could go toward protecting the most vulnerable in our society — including those who have lost their personal independence payments (PIP) due to higher barriers to accessing the benefit, or pensioners who have lost their winter fuel payments through the introduction of means-testing.
“These are issues about which I know colleagues care passionately.”
Josh Self is Editor of Politics.co.uk, follow him on Bluesky here.
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