UK politics live: Starmer urged to be ‘bold’ in Brexit reset talks ahead of crunch meeting

Sir Keir Starmer has defended his planned youth mobility scheme with the EU, insisting it does not cross Labour’s red line on freedom of movement and will be good for “working people”.

Ahead of its announcement at the UK-EU summit in London on Monday, he said a youth mobility deal is “not freedom of movement”.

Our political correspondent Archie Mitchell reports:

In a last-minute row in the talks with the EU, it was reported on Friday that EU member states were demanding that EU students should pay lower British tuition fee rates for universities, which could cost the UK an estimated £1bn.

French president Emmanuel Macron was also leading a charge for demands that EU fishermen can fish in British waters as part of a deal to allow trade barriers to be removed.

Added to that, there were criticisms that there is a lack of ambition in a proposed youth mobility scheme for 18 to 30-year-olds, with claims the UK cap on the number of people who could come here are too low for the liking of EU member states.

A £25bn annual boost to British exports is at stake for Sir Keir Starmer as he tries to secure a Brexit reset deal at a crucial summit on Monday, analysis shared with The Independent reveals.

Removing trade barriers on goods, including food and drink and electrical items, could result in a 2.2 per cent uplift in gross domestic product in the long run, boosting the economic growth the prime minister so desperately wants to deliver, financial analysts Frontier Economics found.

And a separate assessment by the National Institute for Economic and Social Research (NIESR) warns that a failure to land a deal for easier trading could lead to a 2.7 per cent drop in exports by 2027, costing the UK economy almost £30bn.

The impact on the British economy from such a deal is expected to dwarf that of the agreements recently signed with India and the US.

My colleagues Alicja Hagopian and David Maddox have the full, exclusive report:

Sir Keir Starmer has been urged to be “bold” in Monday’s upcoming talks over his sought-after Brexit “reset” deal with the EU.

Ahead of the prime minister’s first UK-EU summit on Monday, MPs on the Commons foreign affairs committee warned that the government’s “secretive” approach to negotiations may have harmed its efforts.

In a letter to Sir Keir, the MPs insisted that public support for closer relations with Europe meant the government had space to be “bold in its offer to the EU” in order to “maximise benefits” from the negotiations.

The committee said: “We are concerned that such a piecemeal and secretive approach to these EU negotiations not only complicates public and parliamentary scrutiny of the reset, but could also negatively affect the impact, stability and durability of its outcome.”

Committee chair Dame Emily Thornberry said: “We should be clear about what it is that we want and act with a little less caution and a lot more confidence. If we do this, there is every reason to believe the EU will respond positively.”