Brexit is no longer done. Alas.

Starmer's EU "reset" is worse than I thought. Unwinding it will raise no-deal Brexit drama all over again. The horror.

Bound up in the EU. Again.

Having read the published papers on Starmer’s EU reset, I am sorry to write the situation is worse than I thought and our political future darker:

• There is agreement to work towards a “Common Sanitary and Phytosanitary Area” (that is, we will take rules on agri-food).

• Starmer is working to put us in the EU’s internal electricity market – giving up control over how our market is regulated – in addition to placing us under the EU’s emissions trading system and Carbon Border Adjustment Mechanism.

• On defence, we will adopt the SAFE Regulation, which means EU nations will override the design authority of UK defence firms, amongst other things.

• There are provisions on health security, which should raise alarm bells after pandemic lockdowns.

• There’s further entrenchment of the idea that we face “climate and nature crises” as “existential threats”, legitimising still further action.

Where the package includes cooperation as sovereign equals, I have no objection in principle and it can be a good thing, such as on crime, but where there is an open-ended commitment to submit to EU rules and enforcement, I object.

The fundamental point of leaving the EU was to be outside the EU’s legal and political jurisdiction: that has been partially overthrown. For now, it appears the UK’s governing elite has, with weary inevitability, had its way against the repeatedly expressed views of electors: the points on the track have been thrown again, putting us back on course to be controlled by the EU, not governing ourselves.

Given that Reform totally rejects the package¹, that the Conservatives have committed to undo any agreement making the UK a rule taker² and that the Labour party are now down to 46% of the support they had at the General Election, it should be obvious to everyone – UK officials and EU included – that this arrangement is not sustainable. There’s a long way to go but Labour are likely to lose the next general election to a coalition of the Conservatives and Reform pledged to undo the deal.

Sam Coates explains on Sky News where Labour’s voters have gone.

Alas it is now going to be a fight all the way, with this government and the machinery of state fighting for their part-in settlement, marginalising those who object and working hard to make reversing it seem impossible: why not give up instead?

People will not give up because democratic control of political power is an inviolable principle for some of us. The public may not spend much time considering the respective merits of SPS rule-taking vs equivalence, but they can see when liberties are being taken.

Our governing elite apparently hate governing and prefer to delegate it to someone else. Unfortunately, that will never change. So at the next election, it will be no-deal Brexit all over again as electors choose a government willing to impose the voters’ view on a recalcitrant governing class come what may. It is going to be horrible.

In the absence of legal text, this post concentrates on the politics of negotiation, the major issues and how difficult it will be to reverse what will now be done. It is a large open question whether, ten to 15 years on from the referendum, voters’ will have the appetite to put public servants of all kinds in their democratic place.