Brussels is to demand that Britain surrenders fishing rights and follows European Union laws for the first time since Brexit, as the price of a new trade deal with Sir Keir Starmer.
A blueprint for European negotiators, seen by The Times, reveals that EU leaders intend to make the UK accepting the jurisdiction of the European Court of Justice a red line for a better trading relationship.
The demand would represent the first time since Brexit that the UK has had to follow EU law as part of the UK’s trading relationship with the bloc.
The document also warns that Starmer would also effectively have to dismantle the UK’s independent marine protection policy and guarantee the right of European fishermen to access British waters.
The EU’s hardline position is set out in a document that will be presented to a council of European ministers next week. It comes before the start of formal talks, due to begin next year, on renegotiating Britain’s existing Brexit trade deal with the bloc.
The document makes clear that the EU will demand key concessions on fishing, the European Court of Justice and youth mobility as the price of an improved deal.
On fishing it states that the UK must agree to “the maintenance of the status quo” on access for European boats, including the same levels of catch allowances, before talks can even begin.
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The current arrangements are seen by the National Federation of Fishermen’s Organisations (NFFO) as a “neo-colonial relationship with the EU” because Britain has given up post-Brexit control of fishery resources.
“The maintenance of the status quo is essential for member states,” the document, drafted after months of internal discussions, states. “A reset between the Union and the UK is only credible if it is based on an early understanding on this.”
Mike Cohen, the chief executive officer of the NFFO, said the existing deal meant that the EU derived far more benefit from fishing in UK waters than vice versa.
“In a situation almost without precedent, foreign boats fish in the UK’s territorial waters, just six miles from the coast,” he said, noting that most Channel cod is caught by the French and most Welsh sole by Belgian boats.
New Brussels demands, included in the 19-page document, would effectively dismantle Britain’s independent marine protection policy — after opposition, led by France, to conservation measures if there are “socioeconomic consequences on Union fishing communities”.
“The UK is expected to take into account the comments from the Union on planned measures,” the document said.
Charles Clover, the co-founder of Blue Marine Foundation, the conservation charity, described the demands as “absolutely outrageous”. He said that, if agreed, they would leave British fishing waters at the mercy of “French trawlers able to trash UK marine protected areas”.
“This is an unprincipled, unselfconsciously greedy mugging of the UK on behalf of the EU’s fishing nations, completely ignoring the EU’s own commitments to protecting nature,” he said.
The document also makes clear that the EU will do a deal on food exports only if Starmer agrees to put all existing and new European laws on food and agriculture, known as SPS, into British legislation.
It would also require the government and House of Commons to abide by rulings from the European Court of Justice on matters of EU law.
“Member states are open to considering an agreement with the UK that would remove the SPS border between Great Britain and the Union on condition that there is full alignment to the Union acquis, and the jurisdiction of the Court of Justice of the EU is preserved for the interpretation of Union law,” the document states.
The confidential text then explicitly rejects a deal “based on the equivalence of legislation”, the government’s position, and notes “this means the UK putting EU legislation on its statute book”.
The position would force the government, via what would be a difficult Commons vote, to revoke laws brought in under the last government that allowed gene-edited food to be developed commercially in England for the first time.
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At the time ministers argued that Brexit meant the UK could become a world leader in GM technology because of restrictions on its use in the EU.
The EU will press for a youth mobility scheme, rejected by the government because it would push up net migration figures, expressing “strong support from member states”.
Charles Grant, the director of the Centre for European Reform, said the EU demands would be difficult for Starmer but could lead to long-term economic benefits. “Starmer’s reset is going to require him to do some politically difficult things which will undoubtedly anger the Conservatives and Reform,” he said.
“The EU is going to insist on dynamic alignment and a role for the European Court as the price of an SPS deal.
“But if it can be negotiated it would set a precedent for much closer co-operation across a range of other areas, such as energy, that would be mutually beneficial.
“The British just need to work out exactly what they want in terms of a better trading relationship, and what they are prepared to concede in other areas such as youth mobility or fish, to get the deal through.”
SPS checks have been blamed by businesses for a significant fall in UK food exports to the Continent. Archie Norman, the chairman of Marks and Spencer, told Times Radio on Friday that they had had to shut a store in Paris which had generated revenues of £7 million because it was uneconomic post- Brexit.
He added that the company had also had to hire a warehouse just to store the paperwork needed to export to Ireland. “We rented a warehouse to store these bits of paper that nobody looked at in the first place,” he said. “I mean, you wouldn’t believe it, but it is quite extraordinary.”
