Next week's summit will deliver progress: a veterinary deal, enhanced co-operation on energy, defence, as well as a youth mobility deal. But the economic impact will be limited, even in the best of circumstances on the order of 0.3% largely because of youth mobility
For a government that has set economic growth as the top priority that is not enough. But UK ambitions are constrained by its red lines and unwillingness to reconsider freedom of movement, which would unlock a Swiss type deal with an impact of well over 1 percent.
Freedom of movement has become a big taboo in British politics based on the idea that it helped fuel the Brexit referendum. That claim has never been properly substantiated, but in any case it reflects the world in 2016, not 2025
There's no new wave of European migration that would be unleashed. CEE countries now have labour shortages and are increasingly immigration destinations, not emigration origins. And through the Dublin convention, it would actually help control illegal migration -a top concern of the British public
Meanwhile the UK will need migrants to fuel its services exports, to have enough carers for an aging population and build enough houses to address the housing shortage. By failing to level with the public on this, Labour is only fuelling mistrust in the establishment
And in world dominated by Trump, Xi and Putin, the UK needs relations with reliable partners such as the EU to be as close as they can get. If the US is no longer reliable, there are no real other alternatives.
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