Keir Starmer has said he wants an “ambitious security partnership” with the EU, while insisting the UK does not have to choose between Europe and the US.
The prime minister was speaking before meeting EU leaders in Brussels to discuss security and defence, the first time a British leader has attended a European Council meeting since Britain left the EU five years ago.
Starmer said he wanted “an ambitious UK-EU security partnership to bolster Nato”. Facing criticism that the UK had been vague in its hopes for this pact, he said it should cover military technology, research and development, improved mobility of forces across Europe, protection of critical infrastructure and deepening industrial collaboration to boost production.
“We can’t be commentators when it comes to matters of peace on our continent,” he told reporters. “We must lead and that’s what I’ve determined that we will do.”
Starmer was speaking at Nato headquarters after meeting the alliance’s secretary general, Mark Rutte, who reiterated that allies needed to spend “considerably more” than the current target of 2% of GDP.
Later, over a dinner of celeriac soup and sea bream, Starmer told European leaders he wanted deeper EU-UK cooperation against state threats and sabotage. He raised the issue following a spate of incidents where subsea cables were damaged, raising suspicions of Russian or Chinese state-sponsored sabotage.
With the French president, Emmanuel Macron, calling for a “buy European” armaments policy, Starmer urged EU leaders not to exclude the UK from spending plans. “Fragmentation would weaken us all,” he said, according to remarks released by Number 10. “Instead, let’s maximise the industrial weight and clout that we have together.”
In calling for deeper defence industry collaboration, the prime minister cited the European aerospace and defence company Airbus and the French defence firm Thales – the latter employs 7,000 people in the UK. “Look at Airbus or Thales – their success in the UK boosts defence across Europe,” he said.
After dinner, the European Council president, António Costa, told reporters that “everyone was delighted to welcome Sir Keir Starmer … and to say clearly that the United Kingdom and the European Union are reliable and predictable partners”.
Costa said he expected the EU and UK to hold a summit in the UK on 19 May to build “the closest relationship it will be possible to build together”.
But a majority of member states are demanding the UK sign up to the EU’s demands on fishing rights and a youth mobility scheme as part of a broader package to reset the relationship, including security.
Managing the negotiations will fall to the European Commission president Ursula von der Leyen, who sidestepped a question on the sequencing of talks. She said it was “very good to have a thorough discussion with prime minister Keir Starmer because European security concerns us all inside and outside the European Union”.
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The dinner, which lasted about 70 minutes, took place at the Palais d’Egmont in central Brussels, where Edward Heath signed the treaty to bring the UK into the then European Economic Community in 1972.
Poland’s prime minister, Donald Tusk, who last month said he dreamed of “Breturn”, said it was the moment for the EU and UK “to get as close as possible again”. Poland has the EU’s rotating presidency and Tusk said it was his idea to invite Starmer to have the UK as “close as possible” on security issues and “to find ways to eliminate or reduce barriers in trade between the UK and Europe”.
Before Starmer arrived, the EU27 held day-long talks to discuss defence, but the meeting was overshadowed by Trump’s threats to impose tariffs on the bloc.
Asked earlier in the day whether he was worried by Donald Trump’s refusal to rule out hitting the UK with tariffs, the prime minister said “obviously, it’s early days”.
“I think what’s really important is open and strong trading relations and that’s been the basis of my discussions with President Trump,” he said. “I know that intense US-EU discussions are planned.”
UK government officials have already drawn up retaliatory tariffs that could be quickly imposed on US goods if Trump decided to start a trade war.
Starmer said the UK did not have to choose between the EU and the US, when asked if he would weaken his reset with the bloc to keep Trump happy. “Both of these relations are very important to us. We are not choosing between them, but that’s historically been the position of the UK for many, many decades.”
The Nato secretary general downplayed Trump’s tariff strategy and looming trade war, saying he was “absolutely convinced” Nato could deal with trade tensions between the US and Canada. Rutte said European defence without Nato was “a silly thought” and would not work.
Arriving at the dinner, Starmer said rejoining the EU was not going to happen, but there could be “a better, closer relationship when it comes to trade and security”.
His trip to Brussels came as Reform took a lead over Labour for the first time in a national opinion poll. A Sky News/YouGov poll released on Monday evening put Nigel Farage’s party on 25%, a point ahead of Labour. It also found one in five people who voted Conservative at the last general election would now vote for Reform.
