Sir Keir Starmer heads to Germany as he seeks to ‘rebuild’ EU relations post Brexit
Sir Keir Starmer is heading to Germany to hold talks on a new bilateral treaty with the country as he hopes to “move beyond Brexit to rebuild relationships” with the EU.
The prime minister will meet German Chancellor Olaf Scholz on Wednesday to discuss the deal, which will aim to “boost business and trade, deepen defence and security cooperation, and increase joint action on illegal migration”.
Downing Street expects negotiations for the treaty – which it described as “a key pillar of the UK’s wider reset with Europe” – to continue for six months, with both sides hoping it can be signed in early 2025.
Speaking ahead of the trip, Sir Keir the UK “must turn a corner on Brexit and fix the broken relationships left behind by the previous government”.
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Specific areas expected to be addressed in the new treaty with Germany include market access between the countries, science and technology collaboration, clean energy and energy security, trade across the North Sea and so-called supply chain “resilience”.
The two leaders will also discuss further intelligence sharing in an effort to tackle the people smuggling gangs responsible for much of the illegal migration in Europe.
As well as meeting Mr Scholz and German President Frank-Walter Steinmeier, Sir Keir will also hold talks with the chief executives of both technology firm Siemens and defence company Rheinmetall.
It will be the fifth time Sir Keir Starmer has met Olaf Scholz since he became prime minister. Pic: PA
He will then travel to Paris to attend the Paralympics opening ceremony on Wednesday night, before holding a breakfast meeting with French business leaders and later meeting France’s President Emmanuel Macron.
Sir Keir said: “We have a once-in-a-generation opportunity to reset our relationship with Europe and strive for genuine, ambitious partnerships that deliver for the British people.
“Strengthening our relationship with these countries is crucial, not only in tackling the global problem of illegal migration, but also in boosting economic growth across the continent and crucially in the UK – one of the key missions of my government.”
Emmanuel Macron and Sir Keir Starmer have also met three times in the past eight weeks. Pic: PA
The trip comes after the prime minister warned of “painful” decisions in his government’s first budget come October, due to what Labour has called a £22bn “black hole” in the public finances left by the previous Conservative government.
Giving a speech in the gardens of Number 10 on Tuesday, he hinted at tax rises in the autumn, saying “those with the broadest shoulders should bear the heavier burden” and “those who made the mess should have to do their bit to clean it up”.
But Sir Keir also said he would have to “turn to the country and make big asks of you as well, to accept short-term pain for long-term good”.
The Tory shadow chief secretary to the Treasury Laura Trott said the government was “rolling the pitch to break even more promises” after campaigning on not increasing taxes during the last election, adding: “This a betrayal of people’s trust and we will hold them to account for their actions.”
The deal was announced in response to the White House’s recent policy strategy to make the United States the AI capital of the world.
Nomura’s crypto arm gains regulatory green light in Dubai to offer institutional OTC crypto options, expanding the UAE’s footprint in global digital derivatives.
Safeguarding minister Jess Phillips has told Sky News that councils that believe they don’t have a problem with grooming gangs are “idiots” – as she denied Elon Musk influenced the decision to have a national inquiry on the subject.
The minister said: “I don’t follow Elon Musk’s advice on anything although maybe I too would like to go to Mars.
“Before anyone even knew Elon Musk’s name, I was working with the victims of these crimes.”
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Elon Musk. Pic: Reuters
Mr Musk had called Ms Phillips a “rape genocide apologist” in one of a series of inflammatory posts on X in January and said she should go to jail.
Mr Musk, then a close aide of US President Donald Trump, sparked a significant political row with his comments – with the Conservative Party and Reform UK calling for a new public inquiry into grooming gangs.
At the time, Ms Phillips denied a request for a public inquiry into child sexual exploitation in Oldham on the basis that it should be done at a local level.
But the government announced a national inquiry after Baroness Casey’s rapid audit on grooming gangs, which was published in June.
Asked if she thought there was, in the words of Baroness Casey, “over representation” among suspects of Asian and Pakistani men, Ms Phillips replied: “My own experience of working with many young girls in my area – yes there is a problem. There are different parts of the country where the problem will look different, organised crime has different flavours across the board.
“But I have to look at the evidence… and the government reacts to the evidence.”
Ms Phillips also said the home secretary has written to all police chiefs telling them that data collection on ethnicity “has to change”, to ensure that it is always recorded, promising “we will legislate to change the way this [collection] is done if necessary”.
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Operation Beaconport has since been established, led by the National Crime Agency (NCA), and will be reviewing more than 1,200 closed cases of child sexual exploitation.
Ms Phillips revealed that at least “five, six” councils have asked to be a part of the national review – and denounced councils that believed they don’t have a problem with grooming gangs as “idiots”.
“I don’t want [the inquiry] just to go over places that have already had inquiries and find things the Casey had already identified,” she said.
She confirmed that a shortlist for a chair has been drawn up, and she expects the inquiry to be finished within three years.
Ms Phillips’s comments come after she announced £426,000 of funding to roll out artificial intelligence tools across all 43 police forces in England and Wales to speed up investigations into modern slavery, child sex abuse and county lines gangs.
Some 13 forces have access to the AI apps, which the Home Office says have saved more than £20m and 16,000 hours for investigators.
The apps can translate large amounts of text in foreign languages and analyse data to find relationships between suspects.
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