UK image ‘tarnished’ by bungled Brexit, Starmer’s EU chief says

The UK’s messy handling of its European Union exit damaged the country’s international reputation, the British minister responsible for EU relations told Bloomberg as his new Labour government seeks to reset ties with its closest trading partner. 

Successive Conservative governments “tarnished it in their handling of Brexit” by “turning inwards when actually Britain should always be turning outwards to the world,” Nick Thomas-Symonds said Thursday in a Bloomberg TV interview at the European Political Community summit in Blenheim Palace, England.

Prime Minister Keir Starmer — in office for less than two weeks — is using the summit, where he’s hosting more than 40 of the continent’s leaders at Winston Churchill’s ancestral home, to begin repairing the country’s relationship with Europe after years of toxicity following Brexit. 

Starmer’s priority is to bolster security and defense ties with the EU. He also aims to ease trade frictions for fresh food, secure mutual recognition of professional qualifications with the bloc, and bolster the ability of British performing artists to tour the region.

The premier’s decision to quickly scrap the last government’s controversial program to deport asylum seekers to Rwanda, which was ruled unlawful by the UK’s highest court, demonstrates a “very different approach to international affairs to what’s gone before,” Thomas-Symonds said.

“Britain has to be, once again, standing tall on the world stage, not a country that is actually openly talking of breaching international law,” he said — a reference to Tory threats to pull the country out of the European Convention on Human Rights if European courts thwarted the Rwanda plan.

Hanging over the EPC meeting is the uncertain outcome of the US election later this year, with the prospect of Donald Trump’s return to the White House. His pick for vice-president, Ohio Senator JD Vance, has been critical of American support for Ukraine.

Thomas-Symonds, who’s seeking a bespoke security pact with the EU to bolster cooperation, warned that defense capacity across Europe shouldn’t be fragmented. Starmer opened the summit by warning his European counterparts that this was the moment to step up support for Ukraine.

“The reset between the UK and EU really is now about opening a new partnership, a new moment in our relationship that really is about cooperation on the great challenges that we face,” Thomas-Symonds said.