Labour wants to make Brexit work better. What does the EU think?

THE IMMEDIATEEUEUEUEU reaction of European leaders to a widely expected Labour election win later this year would be a sigh of relief. After eight years of often tense relations with several Tory prime ministers, dealing with a pro-European Labour one would make a pleasant change. The remains by far Britain’s largest trade partner; indeed, its share of British total trade has been rising in recent years. The has added to the case for closer cross-channel co-operation. It helps that old fears that Brexit might be copied by others in the have largely evaporated.Yet Sir Keir Starmer, the Labour leader, remains cautious about Britain’s relationship with the . He has promised not to reverse Brexit, and has ruled out rejoining the single market or the customs union. Instead, he wants to , a task already begun under Rishi Sunak, the prime minister. A year ago Mr Sunak signed the Windsor framework to simplify border checks between Great Britain and Northern Ireland (this week the swallowed their opposition to this and agreed to return to devolved government in Belfast). Britain has also rejoined the ’s Horizon and Copernicus scientific-research projects.