A new poll has found that European citizens in Germany and Poland are in favour of the UK being offered a special deal on trade with the EU, in return for Britain’s help with defence and security, which could ultimately lead to Sir Keir Starmer committing the ultimate Brexit betrayal by cosying up to the European Union.
More Europeans in five key countries would also accept granting the UK “special access” to parts of the single market in return for a closer security deal – one of the continent’s few major defence players – than would oppose it, the survey suggests.
The willingness for the EU to bend or breach its own red line for Brexit reset talks – no “cherry-picking” of single market access for the UK while it is outside the economic bloc – was felt particularly strongly in countries that feel a more direct threat from Russia.
A majority in both Germany (53%) and Poland (54%) backed the trade-off, according to the YouGov/Datapraxis six-country poll for the European Council on Foreign Relations, which received a total of just under 9,700 replies across France, Germany, Italy, Poland, Spain and the UK.
Even in France, which has its own large defence industry, 41% of voters supported giving the UK greater access for a security deal, compared to just 29% opposed.
More voters in Spain (42% for compared to 37% opposed) and Italy (42-35) favoured granting some single-market access in return for a closer security relationship with the UK.
This week, Chancellor Rachel Reeves signalled for a British push to join a multibillion pound EU weapons-buying programme during a visit to Brussels, while stressing that it is in the interests of both sides to foster closer ties on trade to boost economic growth.
EU insiders have also signalled that president-elect Donald Trump’s inauguration in the United States could make Brussels more willing to do a wide-ranging deal centred around security.
“The public across Europe, including in the UK, are not daft,” said Stella Creasy, chair of the pro-EU Labour Movement for Europe. “They are looking at the changing world around us, whether it’s Ukraine, America, Syria, and recognising that working together is the better option.
“It’s now up to us as politicians to have the difficult but necessary conversation about how to make that work.
“But we should be under no illusions that the public view has changed, the context has changed, so the opportunities have changed too if we are prepared to grasp them.”
However, Anand Menon, director of think tank UK In A Changing Europe, said the EU would find it difficult to bend its own rules to allow Britain favourable trade terms and could push other non-member states like Switzerland to ask for the same treatment, as well as encourage member states to ask for the same flexibility.
Sir Nick Harvey, CEO of the European Movement UK and a former Armed Forces minister, said that “forming closer ties between the UK and the EU has never been more important” and backed Reeves’s move towards Brussels on defence as “crucial”.
“The future of Europe depends not on elections on another continent but on Europe fulfilling its own destiny and own place in the geopolitical landscape. The UK needs to make a clear choice to be part of that European strength, in the interests of all of us – on defence and security, just as much as on trade and the economy,” he said.
“We cannot be the 51st state of America – it makes no sense geographically, politically or industrially. Europe’s defence is our defence, its security our security, its fight our fight – as Ukraine has shown.
“A failure by the UK to step forward and play a leading role in European defence is potentially suicidal both militarily and economically.”
