He has the means, motive and opportunity to reopen negotiations. The means: a large majority and broadly pro-European Parliamentary Labour Party. The motivation: the government is desperate for any policy that can end the UK’s anaemic economic stagnation, of which Brexit is one of several causes. And the opportunity: polling suggests that the public is open to a closer relationship.

The question is, what sort of a relationship does Starmer want? Labour has repeatedly ruled out joining the single market or customs union, red lines that feel quite déjà vu. They are the same red lines as Theresa May’s, the Remainer who took over from David Cameron after his failed referendum campaign.

Like Starmer, May also wanted to maximise the economic benefit of a close relationship while minimising political cost, and subsequently came up with the “Chequers proposal”, named after the PM’s country residence in which it was conceived. Eight years on, this untested Tory deal offers a surprisingly plausible lodestar for Starmer as he scopes out his EU options.

The basic idea of Chequers, assuming you haven’t thought about it since 2018, was to maintain the most economically beneficial aspect of EU membership – the single market for goods – while losing the most politically controversial – free movement of people. Chequers would also have had the benefit of removing checks on goods between Great Britain and Northern Ireland – avoiding the need for the Northern Ireland protocol by effectively applying a similar arrangement to the whole of the UK. Crucially, the UK would retain control over non-goods regulations, its borders and some aspects of trade policy.

It was politics that killed Chequers. May’s own cabinet rebelled, as Boris Johnson smelled a political opportunity to take power by pushing for a harder Brexit. The DUP refused to support it, irrationally, for fear of the “backstop”, which ended up being more or less what Northern Ireland ended up with in Johnson’s harder version of Brexit.

Britain could have had a softer, less damaging version of Brexit if Labour had supported May’s deal. But Jeremy Corbyn refused, under pressure from Remainers in his own party (including Keir Starmer), who still held out hope for a second referendum and the chance to rejoin the EU.

Starmer doesn’t have the political constraints of either May or Corbyn. Unlike any PM since Brexit, he has a large majority of MPs who want a closer relationship with the EU, and polling suggests minimal public opposition to the idea.

The real challenge comes from the Union itself. Brussels was never keen on splitting the four freedoms (goods, services, capital and people), and, with its own populist and economic threats, reviewing the Brexit deal is far down its list of priorities. In 2018, both Westminster and Brussels understood the benefit of a quick deal. In 2026, the EU is reasonably happy with the Brexit deal. Policymakers in the bloc quite reasonably ask why they should commit to any new arrangement, in the knowledge that a future Reform (or Conservative) government could tear it up. Indeed, they have reportedly requested a specific “Farage clause” to guard against precisely that scenario.

If we assume Chequers is an unachievable but helpful lodestar, what are Starmer’s next best options? 

One plausible route is to seek exemptions on border checks for as many goods as possible, starting with those that are most important for UK consumers and exporters. The most obvious candidate is sanitary and phytosanitary (SPS), which basically covers food, and that is already being negotiated. Few Brits object to EU food standards, and an SPS deal could lower food prices – a top priority for a government focused on the cost of living.

Another candidate for exemption is inputs for manufacturing, particularly in the automotive sector. Many British manufacturers rely on frictionless trade with Europe, not just as an export market, but in the manufacturing process, which can involve parts crossing borders multiple times. Removing checks by aligning standards costs Britain some autonomy, but this seems well worth the economic benefit, not least because British exporters already produce to EU standards anyway.

A more contentious area of potential alignment is on energy. Britain has some of the highest energy costs in the world, which is a significant constraint on growth, as well as an everyday worry for ordinary households. Rejoining the EU’s internal electricity market would allow us to trade electricity more efficiently with the bloc, potentially reducing bills. However, alignment could come with significant costs: for instance, signing up to the Union’s Renewable Energy Directive could bind us to costly targets and mean we end up burning more biofuels to make up the difference. 

Outside of trade, Britain has indicated its willingness to expand youth mobility. Net migration to the UK has already fallen quite dramatically, and is expected to fall further in 2026. This arguably creates a rare political space to think about how Britain can attract the most economically productive migrants, an approach that is also more likely to command public support. Increased mobility (but not full free movement) could be part of Britain’s offer in return for a closer trading relationship.

Lastly, London and EU capitals will have watched Donald Trump’s actions in Venezuela, and his recent sabre-rattling towards Greenland, with a significant degree of (mostly unexpressed) horror. Trump’s isolationism, Vladimir Putin’s aggression and a revitalised Monroe Doctrine mean that the need for European geopolitical unity is greater than ever.

Britain, as Europe’s biggest military power (on some measures), has a lot to offer in this regard. But it is difficult to see how this will play out in negotiations. The EU prefers to separate out defence-related negotiations from wider trade negotiations, and the UK tends to prefer to deal with European capitals bilaterally when it comes to defence and security. Ultimately, geopolitical events may force deeper defence cooperation, irrespective of any trade deal.

The UK and the EU are bound by geography, trade and geopolitics. Any government with the means, motive and opportunity to forge a closer relationship should seize the chance. But Britain and Europe also share wider economic challenges which will not be fixed by integration alone. Like France and Italy, our GDP per capita is more or less the same as it was ten, 15 or even 20 years ago. Since the financial crisis, productivity has remained stagnant across the board in pretty much all western European countries. We, like other European countries, need to get better at building physical infrastructure, homes near good jobs, and cheaper energy. Starmer is right to explore a closer relationship with Europe, but he would be unwise to bet the economy on it – let alone his survival.

[Further reading: Josh Babarinde: Lib Dems need to fight “for the soul of our country”]

Aside from being an indictment of the quality of ideas around, this says a lot about Britain’s failure to reckon with its fundamental economic challenge: a lack of dynamism. Brexit didn’t cause our economic stagnation, but it did create an excuse for our stagnation.

Westminster’s obsession with Brexit is both touchingly optimistic – if we could just fix this one thing, we’d be rich! – and distractingly inhibiting, as it implies that no economic reform is possible or worth considering unless and until we address what is still (inexplicably) referred to as “the elephant in the room”. Brexit has undoubtedly been bad for Britain’s economy, probably to the tune of about 4 per cent of annual GDP by 2035. From car manufacturers in Coventry to musicians in York, from shoppers in London to potters in Stoke, Brexit has hit exporters and inflated prices, sapped confidence and drained investment.

But if the key to growth were removing customs checks, or even single market membership, countries like Germany, France and Italy would have seen very different growth rates from Britain since 2016. In fact, they haven’t. When it comes to economic growth (or lack of it), Britain is recognisably European. Like France, Germany and Italy, our GDP per capita is more or less the same as it was ten, 15 or even 20 years ago. Since the financial crisis, productivity has remained stagnant across the board in pretty much all Western European countries.

Meanwhile, if Britain had grown at the same rate as the US since 2007, each household would be 12 per cent better off – for a household on £50,000 income, that’s £6,000 extra each year. It’s about three times larger than the projected Brexit impact on productivity. Brexit gives us a scapegoat, an easy answer, a reason not to dig deeper and make more fundamental choices to pursue growth. Even the Prime Minister, who has hitherto avoided the B-word, now says that Brexit was “utterly reckless”, and that we need to “confront the reality” that leaving the EU was bad for growth.

It is a view that has long been held by our political leaders, even when they avoided talking about it, as well as a majority of the general public, including many Brexiters themselves. The problem is that Britain – and Europe’s – growth problems run much deeper. Instead of focusing on Brexit, we should ask ourselves why the US has managed to grow at a rapid pace since the financial crisis, despite isolationist trade policies and populist politics. That is the question to which Starmer and Reeves should devote their attention.

Sceptics argue that we have little to learn from American growth, because the US exists in its own reality. A country like Britain can’t just decide to have the world’s reserve currency, become the largest military power or use Trumpian tariffs to force concessions from tributaries. These factors are real, but hardly new: they do not explain why Western Europe and the US grew at similar rates between 1945 and 2007 and have since diverged.

There are many reasons for this divergence, but if it had to be summed up in a word, the most obvious difference between American and European economies today is a difference in dynamism.

Dynamic economies are adaptive and opportunistic. A tell-tale sign of a dynamic market is one where new companies can quickly take on and beat established incumbents. Of the ten largest companies in the US, eight specialise in technologies that didn’t exist 20 years ago, six did not exist before 1991, and two (Meta and Tesla) were founded since the millennium. Corporate success in the US today looks very different compared to 20 years ago. That’s a sign of dynamism. As the economist Brian Albrecht argues, the US economy has seen an increase in market share for the most productive companies. It is not clear that the same happened in Europe.

Meanwhile, Europe’s top ten features more companies from the 19th century (three firms) than the 21st (none at all), and only two are in digital technology. Britain’s top ten features just one tech company, ARM, owned by Japan’s SoftBank. European wealth tends to be held by the same families and companies that held it 100, or even 200, years ago: aristocratic landowners, financiers, owners of old and established companies. The UK and EU lack superstar firms, particularly in technology.

Crucially, dynamism is not the same as innovation. Britain, like many European countries, has no shortage of entrepreneurs and inventors, scientists and creators. The challenge is continually re-allocating talent and capital towards ever more productive uses, in effect turning ideas into profitable companies that can take on incumbents and scale. For this, market structure, regulation and underlying infrastructure are more important than ingenuity and skills.

Britain, like much of Europe, struggles with these fundamentals. The most prominent is a failure to build. We do not build enough housing, particularly in productive cities, and especially in London. This means workers can’t afford to move to good jobs, and wages are inflated to cover high rents, increasing cost and reducing business investment. The area between London, Oxford and Cambridge should be Europe’s Silicon Valley or Shenzhen. Instead, sheep graze on the land around Heathrow, and Oxford and Cambridge have not been connected by rail since 1967.

Housing is the most obvious bottleneck. But it is difficult to build anything. Britain has some of the highest electricity costs in the world, in part due to our failure to build transmission infrastructure and baseload nuclear power. We have not built a reservoir since 1992, or a runway since 2001 or high- speed rail since 2007. This is as much a function of a broken planning system as broken regulatory frameworks.

Physical infrastructure is important for dynamism because it effectively levels the playing field. Productive firms cannot take on established incumbents if they face prohibitive costs to expansion. Good firms buy and sell from other good firms, so supply-side barriers reduce demand for other companies that could otherwise scale. The net effect is dampened investment and firms that would rather scale in the US – or not at all.

Simplistic calls to rejoin the customs union, or even the EU entirely, also overlook that Europe is going through its own period of self-reflection. Mario Draghi, former head of the ECB, has called for Europe to overcome regulatory hurdles to embrace dynamism. He proposed establishing an EU-wide legal framework (the “28th regime”) to simplify and standardise the rules for businesses, especially those in digital and deep technologies. Yet progress has been slow. The answer cannot simply be to turn the clock back and rejoin an institution that is now clearly facing its own existential moment. Europe and the UK must both take their economic stagnation seriously, rather than simply teaming up in decline.

Britain’s economy is European, for better and for worse. Joining the customs union would most likely be good for growth. But if we think it will save us from economic stagnation, we are suffering from a very British form of exceptionalism. Britain must rediscover its dynamism, whether we’re in or out.

This article first appeared in Renewal journal

[Further reading: Three things we learned from the liaison committee]

“Nobody,” says my therapist, “lies on their deathbed and says, ‘Gosh, I wish I went to more think tank events.’”

This particular therapy session preceded the Labour conference in September 2019. I was anxious and overwhelmed by the prospect of a weekend of little sleep, endless WhatsApp messages and alcohol-fuelled gossip. Yet, in many ways, the annual party conference is also just a microcosm of the exhausting, exhilarating and demanding daily life of young activists on the left.

My day job is in politics. I used to run an MP’s parliamentary office and I am now a political adviser to a trade policy charity. But this is only half the story: my free time is taken up by committees and events with the Fabians, Christians on the Left, Chinese for Labour and my CLP. And, of course, Twitter. I know plenty of people who do far more than me.

A 2019 British Medical Journal study found that surveyed MPs are more likely than people in comparable jobs to experience mental health problems, and half of them would not be willing to discuss it with colleagues. Furthermore, mental health seems to be a particular challenge for young people in politics. Though there are limited statistics on this demographic, I have spent plenty of time in student politics, on political WhatsApp groups and in CLP meetings – and it’s clear that mental health problems are common. Aside from the sheer exhaustion of endless meetings and events on top of their day-jobs, activists feel a pressure to be constantly switched on to the never-ending Twitter news cycle and expected to have the latest “take” on every issue. This can lead to anxiety, stress and depression. 

There are several possible reasons for why mental health issues are so prevalent among young activists. Perhaps it’s because we, as humans, are desperate to find belonging – and politics, though this might seem counterintuitive, can be a particularly difficult place to find it. Political groups can easily become tribes and factions, with internal machinations and an inherent “us and them” mindset. Friendships can be ruined by political competition and debate can turn into outright nastiness, creating a culture of mistrust and paranoia. Twitter, with its pile-ons and clinical ways of measuring success, through followers and likes, only exacerbates the individualistic atmosphere.

Being on the left, specifically, brings its own pressures. Almost every activist I’ve met is sincerely motivated by a desire to make the world a better place. This ambition, however admirable, can be overwhelming. It creates pressure on young people as individuals to address, solve and have a “good take” on every political issue from racism to climate change, while also trying to stay on top of high rents with low-paid jobs, and move through a changeable period of life. It can be paralysing.

So, what can we do about it? There are small things we, as activists, can do ourselves. We can mute conversations on WhatsApp; remember to do things for fun. But a bigger task is to detoxify political spaces. Moving conversations from Twitter to in-person meetings (which has, of course, been difficult during the Covid-19 pandemic) can help to build genuine relationships and allow for “disagreeing well”. Zero tolerance of online harassment among activist groups, including Twitter pile-ons, is also essential, as is mental health support and safeguarding for young activists in the Labour Party.

Perhaps the most important step for those of us on the left would be to recognise that this is an issue with broader political ramifications. It matters for the cause of the left that young people – many of them future leaders – feel able to be involved with politics without suffering from anxiety and depression. Furthermore, mental health challenges are likely to be even more prevalent among those with lower levels of economic security and those at greater risk of online abuse, such as women, LGBT+ people and racial minorities.

Politics may never be the easy route, but it should be possible to engage with it while maintaining good mental health. Young activists are our political future, and if we were free to throw ourselves into politics without compromising our mental health, I believe we would have so much to offer.

He told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme that Batten is taking Ukip in a “shameful direction” where the party is fixated with “Tommy Robinson, discussing Islam, and dragging Ukip into the direction of effectively being a street activist party”. Batten, a veteran anti-Muslim activist, has appointed former English Defence League (EDL) leader Lennon as his “Special Personal Adviser on Rape Gangs and Prison Conditions and Prison Reform”.

Some have been quick to point out the irony of Lennon’s new role, given his extensive criminal record and numerous periods of incarceration, including convictions for violently assaulting a police officer in 2003, playing a leading role in a 100-man hooligan brawl in 2010, attempting to enter the USA with a false passport in 2012, and mortgage fraud in 2014. Batten has responded that Lennon’s convictions are “minor”.

Lennon is also a former member of the British National Party (BNP), which, alongside his status as former EDL leader, disqualifies him from membership of the party according to Ukip’s currents rules. This has done little to perturb Batten, who has fallen under Lennon’s spell and has been pushing for his entry into his party since the latter expressed his wish to join in September.

Since taking the reins of the ailing Eurosceptic group in February, Batten has saved Ukip from imminent bankruptcy but also taken the party into increasingly far-right territory. This has included rolling out the red carpet for a series of extreme figures, including conspiracy theorist Paul Joseph Watson and disgraced former Breitbart star Milo Yiannopoulos, who has claimed that Muslim immigrants would bring “lamb chops, yoghurt and gang-rape” to America. He has also welcomed anti-feminist YouTuber Carl Benjamin (aka Sargon of Akkad), a man who, in a February 2018 video chat, said “Maybe you’re just acting like a bunch of n***rs, mate. Have you considered that? You think white people act like this? White people are meant to be polite and respectful to one another”, continuing “don’t expect me to have a debate with one of you faggots”. (According to BuzzFeed, Benjamin’s defence was to claim that his language was not directed at black and gay people, and that “n***er” is not offensive in Britain like it is in the USA).

By engaging with such figures – Watson and Benjamin, for example, were photographed alongside Batten at a strategy meeting in August – Batten is using Ukip’s more “moderate” reputation to provide extreme actors a veneer of respectability. His incessant campaigning for Lennon threatens to do the same.

It also ensures yet more news coverage for Lennon, who has scarcely been out of the press in recent months. Like Anjem Choudary before him, Lennon has become the high profile, international figure that he is via the media coverage that he has received. In recent months alone, he has made appearances on Sky News, Fox News and BBC Newsnight. His new platform may help him capitalise on the anger of disaffected Brexit voters over the coming year. Indeed, Lennon has already announced the “Great Brexit Betrayal March” for 9 December.

Farage is concerned that Batten’s obsession with Islam (which he calls “Mohammedanism” and has labelled a “death cult”), and his compulsion to cheerlead for Lennon may scupper Ukip’s opportunity to become a serious political force once more. Ukip’s National Executive Committee also shares this view, postponing Batten’s motion for a members vote on Lennon’s entry into the party, claiming that “the focus of the Party must be on Brexit” as “Brexit has reached a crucial juncture”. Ukip has seen recent gains in the polls, but membership remains roughly half of its 46,000 peak during the 2015 general election. 

Of course, as Anoosh Chakelian has written, Ukip under Farage was itself no stranger to nativist politics. His distancing from Lennon is in part strategic, and he has previously hinted that he may return to lead Ukip.

But his attack on the current Ukip leadership reveals the chasm within the party. With the tumultuous political situation and rising anger amongst many hard Brexit supporters, there remains the very real possibility that Ukip, in alliance with Lennon, could still capitalise on the situation. Over the coming months this will likely mean large street protests, with Lennon at the fore. However, Ukip will already have one eye on next year’s local elections, with a view on further exploiting local tensions and a sense of betrayal for potential political gain.

David Lawrence is a researcher at HOPE not hate, where he monitors European radical right movements and the alt-right.