Islington MP Dame Emily Thornberry: ‘We need to bring the British public with us on every change with regard to our relationship with Europe’

THE government needs to be “more ambitious” and “less secretive” about its plans to get closer to the European Union, Emily Thornberry has said, after she criticised the prime minister for not having a clear plan.

In a speech last week, Sir Keir Starmer said that Britain should be “at the heart of Europe”, but Dame Emily said ministers in charge of the relationship are not doing enough.

“They’d rather not say, they don’t want to tell you what they’re doing. If it’s supposed to be one of the big things for this government, then talk about it, don’t be ashamed.”
She told the Tribune that Labour ministers should have gone to EU officials with a “shopping list” of what they wanted after winning a huge majority in 2024.

A failure to do this has meant negotiations on the current agreement, which Dame Emily labelled as “really bad”, had been undermined, leaving the UK unable to export goods and services.

The Islington South and Finsbury MP, who also chairs the Foreign Affairs Select Committee, said a clear vision about the UK-EU relationship had been damaged by the fact colleagues were “politically constrained” in what they could say on the matter by the Labour manifesto.

“We have put in the manifesto that we can’t join the EU, or the customs union, or the single market”, she told the Tribune. “That’s sad and I regret that that’s what’s in the manifesto but that is what is in the manifesto and that is what we got elected on. So we have to do the most that we can within the constraints.

Dame Emily added: “We have to just talk about things which are a bit less sexy. You know, like making sure that we can export medicines easily. Things like that. Or being able to send our surplus electricity into Europe. It’s things like that which keep the country going, and these are the agreements that we need and we don’t have.”

The Islington MP is now embroiled in a “row” with EU minister Nick Thomas-Symonds after she deemed his responses to questions by her committee “vague” and an “insult”.

She called on ministers to come to parliament to discuss the matter more openly and stop being “secretive” about their EU plans.

“Now when Europe look at us, they look at a government that is not really clear about what it wants to achieve”, Dame Emily said. “And in any event, it is not guaranteed that we will win the next election.

“Worse than that, we might end up with a Reform government if the polls are to be believed.

“And that’s why we need to bring the British public with us on every change that we make with regard to our relationship with Europe. So that if, God forbid, we get a Reform government, they can’t unpick it because the British public won’t have it. Because the British public will understand it’s to their advantage that these things have changed.”

Rejoining the EU has become a revived talking point after leadership hopefuls Wes Streeting and Andy Burnham have been drawn into clarifying their position.

Dame Emily said: “I think that when you look actually at what both of them are saying, they both say sort of the same thing as me, which is in their heart of hearts, they’d like to be in the European Union.

“But we know that we can’t be at the moment, and we just have to make the most of it.”