Exclusive: Keir Starmer says Brussels has ‘high expectations’ for PM’s speech but she must face down Boris Johnson’s ‘fantasy Brexit’ and adopt a real position

Brussels fears an enfeebled Theresa May will not be able to stand by any pledges she makes in this week’s major speech on Brexit but has dismissed Boris Johnson’s intervention as an irrelevance, according to the shadow Brexit secretary.

Following meetings with all the major players in the EU’s negotiating team, Keir Starmer said “high expectations” in Brussels over the prime minister’s speech in Florence on Friday were tempered by concerns over her weakness.

Starmer said that those he had met during high level meetings in Brussels on Wednesday, including the EU’s chief negotiator, Michel Barnier, his deputy Sabine Weyand, and Martin Selmayr, the all-powerful chief of staff to EU commission president Jean-Claude Juncker, were deeply sceptical of May’s ability to “follow through” on any of her promises.

“They want to see real progress, and they want follow through,” Starmer said. “Not a speech and nothing else.”

With reference to the speech at last year’s Conservative party conference, where May played to the Tory crowd, including a criticism of “citizens of the world” as being “citizens of nowhere”, Starmer said Brussels were fearful of a rerun at this year’s conference in Manchester.

Starmer said: “They were very struck by what she said at conference last year and they are very conscious that she is making a speech on Friday and she is making another speech in two weeks [at Conservative party conference]. They will take some convincing that Friday is enough if there is not consistency. If it is a position it has got to be a real position.”

Starmer said that the EU expected to hear May “talking about the money”.

On Wednesday it was reported by the Financial Times that Germany had been informed by the British government to expect Theresa May this week to offer to fill a post-Brexit EU budget gap of at least €20bn.

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In an attempt to break the stalemate, UK officials are said to have indicated that no member state will have to pay more into the EU budget or receive less money from it until 2020.

Starmer said he was not aware that such figures had been discussed with the commission. With regard to the comments from the foreign secretary last week, in which Johnson said there would be no payments for access to the single market, Starmer added of the EU negotiating team’s position: “I’m not sure what Boris said is taken that seriously.

“They want progress, and they are concerned about methodology [on the financial settlement] ... There is clearly cause for concern about the rate of progress in Brussels just as there is in the UK. And the ball is very much in the prime minister’s court.”

Starmer went on to say that suggestions from some in the Conservative party that there was the possibility of a bespoke deal for the transition period, rather than a continuation of the status quo, as proposed by Labour and the chancellor, Phillip Hammond, were also damned to fail. “There is a general recognition [in Brussels] that the Labour party has got itself in the right position and sensible position on transitional arrangements,” he said. “No-one is talking in terms of bespoke deals.”

Starmer said that it was clear that the prime minister would need to overcome the misgivings of her foreign secretary about a transition period in which the UK continued to enjoy the benefits of the status quo and paying into the budget as a price for access. “She is going to have to face down Boris Johnson and his fantasy version of Brexit, particularly in relation to financial liabilities,” Starmer said. “And she needs to abandon some of her inflexible red lines. The worst outcome is that she says nothing, inflames the situation, making progress less likely.”



Starmer said the government had promised that the issue of citizens’ rights would have a “quick and easy resolution” but a settlement “will only happen if the prime minister gives up on her ideological red line that the only court that would have jurisdiction arising would be the supreme court in London – that is not an international resolution body.”

Starmer said Labour was not putting a figure on the sum the UK should pay Brussels to settle the accounts, but he insisted that the British government should provide the EU with clear guidance on its opening analysis of what it was willing to pay.

He said: “We have always said the UK should honour its international obligations. I think the government is right not to put a figure on it, I don’t think the government or the EU should put a figure on it, and I have never challenged David Davis on that. But it is important that the framework is agreed. At the moment there is no clarity on the approach the UK is going to take. A methodology is needed and it is needed essentially by next week.”

The promise of a €20bn cheque from the UK would inject new momentum into next week’s Brexit talks, but there are signs that it would still fall short of the EU’s demands.

“The offer may allow us to start talking in greater detail on the financial settlement. However, we think that we are still far from the landing zone,” one EU official told the Guardian.