When Andy Burnham swaps his favoured T-shirt for white tie and tails for a Mansion House dinner on Monday, Europe will be a key theme.
That’s because the Prime Minister’s annual foreign policy speech will be sandwiched between his attendance at the European Political Community (EPC) meeting in Dublin and a make-or-break Brussels summit next week.
While the EPC is an informal assembly of European leaders to hold political and strategic discussions on a wide range of topical subjects, the formal meeting with European leaders is crunch time for the UK’s relationship with the bloc.
The twice-delayed UK-EU in Brussels is set to seal deals on a youth mobility programme, an agrifood deal, and linking emissions markets.
Britain is also seeking access to the EU’s “Made in Europe” drive. Details are still being thrashed out – while a UK Government source said the deal is “95 per cent done”, one sticking point is on cutting university fees for European nationals. Continental leaders want their students to enjoy the same cost of tuition as Britons.
“There could be a significant prize next week if we successfully secure practical agreements that make the country better off,” Burnham told his Cabinet on Tuesday, the Government said in its official readout.
Europe will want to bind UK hands on tuition fees
On Wednesday at Prime Minister’s Questions, Burnham said he was focused first on a deal that could add 0.4 per cent to GDP. “Any growth on that scale is worth taking,” he said.
With European leaders keen – at least publicly – to make the summit a success, both sides will almost certainly claim victory at the end of next week.
While several EU countries still want a final deal on tuition fees in time for the meeting, they all are united in wanting a joint statement to include tougher language to bind the UK’s hands on the issue.
It could be made explicitly clear in the summit agreement that the trio of Brexit reset deals cannot be implemented until Burnham agrees to cut fees, leaving the problem for another day.
But Government insiders argue that there is a much bigger national conversation to be had about Britain’s future, in which short-term debates about whether it is worth compensating the university sector to the tune of £580m pale in comparison with the boost to GDP that closer alignment could bring.
And once the ink has dried on the Brexit reset deal, there are signs the Government will go into a hiatus. That’s because there is no point talking about the future of Britain’s place in Europe until after the French presidential elections in April and May.
A keynote speech from the Prime Minister pencilled in for just after November’s summit to spell out proposals for further EU rapprochement is now in the “maybe” pile and might not happen after all, a Cabinet minister told The i Paper.
Another Government source said instead Burnham is likely to make a couple of lower-key interventions on security and migration in the run up to Christmas and into the new year, but he will not set out full-throated plans to rejoin the bloc.
“I think we’re not going to want to do much this side of the French elections, it’s going to change things,” the Cabinet minister added.
Fears of Le Pen in France
Ministers are concerned far-right National Rally candidate Marine Le Pen is the best placed presidential candidate to make it to the run-off in May, even if she then faces a contender who could command widespread support and beat her.
Even so, the rise of Le Pen in France and the far-right Alternativ für Deutschland in Germany has galvanised some senior ministers to push the case for stronger ties to Europe.
“I don’t think we should stand by if and when you start seeing a fascist Europe,” a second Cabinet minister said.
According to multiple accounts of Tuesday’s Cabinet meeting, senior ministers are in lockstep behind Burnham’s desire to make his Brussels trip a success. “Andy is taking the summit very seriously,” one remarked.
“I think the important thing is getting a good deal at the summit that demonstrates the direction towards improvements in standards, improvements in growth, and then we see where that takes us,” another Cabinet minister added.
But if the official readout of Tuesday’s Cabinet made much of the prizes on offer at the meeting, what wasn’t mentioned in the sanitised version was the frank exchange of views between senior ministers about what comes next.
“Not everyone at Cabinet is on the same page, but then there isn’t a thing to sign up to yet,” a Cabinet minister said, adding there had, as yet, been no discussion of a future referendum on rejoining the EU.
Inside the Cabinet splits
The Cabinet is split between those who think nothing is off the table for future negotiations in the pursuit of economic growth and those wary of reopening old wounds and annoying Labour voters in Leave-supporting constituencies.
Others are concerned about the cost of unpicking hard-fought post-Brexit free trade agreements with countries around the world or business confidence in a period of uncertainty.
Burnham has yet to set out the landing zone of just how close he thinks the UK should get to the bloc although one of his allies said the Prime Minister thinks the UK is “safer, stronger and more prosperous” in Europe.
That’s led to a divergence of views around the Cabinet table. For example, while British negotiators have told their European counterparts they won’t accept so-called dynamic alignment of the UK’s financial services rules with those of the EU in this set of negotiations, if Burnham were to try to take Britain back into the EU or join its single market, as he has said is possible, he would almost certainly have to sign up to its regulations.
The view from the City
That’s a move which could annoy the City after welcoming post-Brexit freedoms – including the removal of a cap on bankers’ bonuses.
On Wednesday, the same day that MPs debated the financial services bill which will allow the City to take advantage of post-Brexit regulatory freedoms, a Cabinet minister told The i Paper: “I don’t think anything’s off the table.”
Opening up the prospect of dynamic alignment on financial services, they added: “We’ve got to look at whether we could remain outside on financial services if we want to get closer.”
A third Cabinet minister said: “I don’t have a crystal ball of what our future looks like, but at the moment nothing is off the table. That could mean fully rejoining or it could look like something else.” The senior minister said of their Cabinet colleagues: “Of course not everyone is signed up to it.”
But they added that they were personally convinced by moving closer to Europe after geopolitical changes since the original referendum in 2016, such as the invasion of Ukraine and Donald Trump’s insistence that Europe funds its own defence.
“Both Russia and the US are making the case we need to be closer to Europe. We are in a very dangerous world,” the Cabinet minister added.
It’s against that backdrop that on Monday Burnham will tog up in full evening dress to address guests on foreign policy in the Mansion House’s grand Egyptian Hall. “I can only imagine it’s rented. I can’t imagine buying white tie passes the Makerfield test,” joked one aide.
The Makerfield test sets out whether national policy works for post-industrial communities neglected by Westminster.
A decade ago, it was one of the areas which voted to leave the EU. Convincing these voters of the benefits of closer integration is a long-term aim. In the meantime, Burnham has to persuade his Cabinet.