Rachel Reeves’ push to improve EU ties remains boxed in by red lines | Heather Stewart

Rachel Reeves is in search of a “deeper, extra mature relationship” between Britain and the EU: this was her central message to the bloc’s finance ministers in Brussels a fortnight in the past.

In her transient speech to the assembly of her European counterparts – the primary a UK chancellor had attended since Brexit – Reeves talked about the UK’s relationship with the EU 9 occasions.

In addition to deeper and extra mature, she wished it to be nearer, stronger, “mature [again] and businesslike” and, “constructed on belief, mutual respect, and pragmatism”.

Little concrete element emerged from Reeves’s Brussels jaunt, however when a chancellor repeats the identical message 9 occasions, it’s price taking word.

With the economic system stagnating, Labour sources say Reeves is more and more driving the trouble to decrease commerce limitations with the EU – led formally from the Cupboard Workplace by Nick Thomas-Symonds.

Mujtaba Rahman, of the consultancy Eurasia Group, a eager analyst of the twists and turns of presidency Brexit coverage, says: “I believe there’s a rising realisation, within the Treasury and past, that smoother commerce with the EU is among the few levers they will pull to enhance development over the medium time period.”

In addition to in search of methods to ship improved financial outcomes, the chancellor additionally hopes to placate enterprise leaders who stay grumpy about her funds tax raid.

And our new man in Washington, Peter Mandelson, as a former EU commerce commissioner, is prone to be aware of potential clashes between something the UK may supply Donald Trump and the prospects for an EU reset.

Precisely what the UK authorities desires from the EU is far more durable to discern, nonetheless – to the irritation of Brussels and pro-EU Labour MPs. “There’s a actual threat that we will miss alternatives as a result of we’re not being clear about what we would like,” warns Stella Creasy, the chair of the Labour Motion for Europe, an inside get together stress group.

Ministers have repeatedly restated the UK’s “pink traces”, which embody not returning to the only market or customs union. And so they have reiterated Labour’s manifesto insurance policies on Brexit, comparable to negotiating a veterinary settlement and securing mutual recognition {of professional} {qualifications}.

However even right here, the UK’s interlocutors seem not sure of what precisely is prone to be on the desk – and solely now’s the federal government appointing a go-between with Brussels. (The previous Treasury official Michael Ellam, now a senior banker, has been tipped for this job by the Monetary Instances – a alternative prone to please his outdated division.)

There are some hints that the federal government could also be ready to transcend the manifesto asks, the place it may well achieve this with the pink traces intact.

But if Labour desires to make progress on the EU-UK summit pencilled in for February, and past, the EU has made it abundantly clear it desires to debate a youth mobility scheme. Ministers have repeatedly rejected that concept, generally suggesting it might be tantamount to free motion.

Regardless of as soon as claiming he wished to see the return of free motion with the EU, Keir Starmer had good motive for ruling it out as Labour coverage – and with it, subsequently, single market membership.

Concern about unchecked migration and its affect on jobs and communities was clearly a part of the motivation for the Brexit vote, and the salience of the problem amongst voters stays excessive. Nevertheless – and it ought to hardly want saying – a time-limited, reciprocal youth mobility scheme is just not the identical factor as unfettered free motion.

The EU’s preliminary proposal was for an uncapped variety of 18-to 30-year-olds to have the ability to come for as much as 4 years, however that may be a start line: the federal government might certainly argue for one thing extra tightly outlined.

And it ought to not be past the wit of the politicians to design a scheme that may assist younger folks from the UK to get apprenticeships, coaching and work placements within the EU, in addition to permitting for the stereotypical wealthy children’ hole 12 months.

However Starmer has undercut his personal skill to advocate for such a scheme along with his current pronouncements on migration, stridently accusing the Tories of an “open borders experiment”.

The online outcome of the present system over the previous few years – together with the choice to create well being and social care visas to assist sort out labour shortages – was document web migration, peaking at a unprecedented 906,000 final 12 months.

However the border is most undoubtedly not open. You possibly can solely come to the UK legally to work if in case you have an employer to sponsor you and a job to return to; pay a hefty visa price and an annual NHS surcharge of £1,035 a 12 months; and match a collection of different standards.

The principles might have been too unfastened, and too little has undoubtedly been carried out to home-grow our personal expertise, however an open border coverage it ain’t. By lumping collectively all migrants, together with those that had been recruited to fill gaps within the hard-pressed NHS and care sectors, as a part of an “experiment,” Starmer does them a disservice.

It’s Labour’s corrosive worry of Nigel Farage and Reform that has formed the federal government’s rhetoric right here, however it might make its personal life more durable if it later has to make the argument for some concessions to the EU on youth mobility.

Reeves’s interventions on Europe in current weeks are greatest learn as the beginning of a decided effort to make the general public case for a more in-depth relationship, even the place which means upsetting Tory Brexiters. That appears, as she put it, “mature”.

However to make the argument stick, Labour can even should reckon with its vexed relationship with migration.