If you go into a negotiation believing your side is in the wrong, and that you need a deal at any cost, the outcome is predictable. 

When it comes to the Chagos Islands, Sir Kier Starmer and his Attorney General’s ideological outlook made failure a certainty. They believed that every country could have strategic interests except the UK, that the UK is by default always wrong, and the left-wing blinkers of “decolonialism” sent them like lambs to the slaughter. Mauritius knew what it was doing, it hired a friend of Starmer who knew to play on this self-imposed UK weakness. Phillip Sands KC earned his fee, as well as his Mauritian “Order of the Star and Key of the Indian Ocean” a key he was working to take out of UK/USA’s hands and give to Mauritius. Fortunately for the UK, if not Starmer’s reputation, President Trump has seen fit to say “boo” to this international legal goose and it has run away.

Unfortunately, the same flawed thinking seems likely to play out in Starmer’s next great project — the “reset” with the EU. To Starmer and his allies all the same issues are in play. Brexit was morally bad, something to apologise to the EU for. The UK is by default in the wrong and should go back to the EU, tail between its legs and ask for forgiveness and a closer relationship. To make matters worse Starmer has announced his intention to get a deal before any negotiations have even started. Failure is assured.

The UK will end up paying for the EU’s high youth unemployment and English language education

This is how it has played out so far and it follows a predictable playbook. The EU, seeing Starmer coming, quickly ruled out all potentially beneficial UK “asks”. So successful were they that the UK appears to have not even raised them. They then went on to make their main demand — UK acquiescence in EU defence, foreign policy and security policy — as a prerequisite for all other agreements. Then to round off the humiliation, the EU thinks it can meet a number of stretch goals — UK subsidising EU students via ERASMUS, UK opening its labour markets and training opportunities to young unemployed EU citizens and a veterinary agreement set on their terms, under their court (despite the fact that the UK is a very minor food exporter and a large importer from the EU). No doubt at the last moment the French will throw in a demand for more UK fish and, with shades of Ted Heath, our hapless and needy Prime Minister will agree.

If Labour agrees to the Brussels “reset”, we will have delivered nothing more than a list of EU demands. The UK will end up paying for the EU’s high youth unemployment and English language education. The EU does not wish to see the UK develop an independent foreign and defence policy (remember the French protests at AUKUS) Starmer will give them control.

This failure of UK diplomacy is a failure of ideology that has been exposed by the Chagos debacle. The UK does have a security interest in the Indo-Pacific and we should certainly not be ashamed of keeping strategic sovereign territory we have held since 1814 on the back of an “advisory opinion” cooked up by an Islington lawyer. No other country would surrender in the way the UK did, and most will rightly think we have lost our mind.

A more sensible approach to the EU “reset” would be this. First, don’t call it a reset. There is no need for a reset, we have a trade agreement that is as far as the EU wished to go within their self-imposed parameters. If changes are needed, then as a whole they should be ones that benefit the UK and the EU equally. The UK should put forward its own “asks”. What might they be?

Well, the UK has an interest in removing the EU legal construct hanging over Northern Ireland. That is damaging the UK and so should be a priority to be removed. Next there are some improvements to the Trade and Cooperation Agreement that could be beneficial. A cultural exemption for touring musicians so they can travel red tape free on the continent (something the EU has vetoed to date); improvements to the rules of origin so that components going into UK goods that originate in the EU or EU trade partners can count towards “domestic content”, this would help UK exporters, but the EU has so far said “Non”. The UK might wish to see easier rules on food exports, a mutual recognition of high standards, but the EU will no doubt also say “Non”. Lastly, there may be more we could agree on Financial Services, more agreement on equivalence of rules and access — something the EU will again oppose.

So, we have some real UK negotiating aims that the EU will resist. We have a range of EU negotiating aims that are things the UK should resist. Sadly, that is not the negotiation we will have, our Government will negotiate on the EU’s demands, water them down a bit and declare the signature of a deal as a triumph. If your aim is a deal as an offering to those upset by Brexit, defeat is assured.

Would the Conservative Party do any better? Well, it is not clear they have yet learnt the lesson of the Brexit negotiations. Kemi Badenoch recently made a speech in which she declared “we were making announcements without proper plans. We announced that we would leave the European Union before we had a plan for growth outside the EU.” This sounds like a fair comment until you remember the sorry history of the Conservative Party’s EU negotiations post-2016. The issue with the Conservative Party then was similar to that of Sir Kier now, they had decided that an EU deal was vital and went to the EU to ask what they could be given. The result was predictable and left the UK with a deal centred on EU demands that could not command support in the UK. Theresa May accepted a Customs Union, EU alignment and the dismemberment of the UK via the Northern Ireland Protocol. The real lesson to learn was not the need to have a plan, it is to have the right plan. And of course, Theresa May’s plan was voted for by Kemi Badenoch.

The Conservatives are out of power now but that is a good time to reset UK thinking. We should negotiate for UK interests and we should have a domestic plan for growth. Now as in 2016, being liked internationally is not an aim in itself.