SOMEWHERE deep in Brussels there is a room I imagine looks like that scene at the end of Raiders Of The Lost Ark.
Buried in a filing cabinet, there is the draft text of an EU-UK Defence and Security Treaty negotiated by Theresa May and her soft-Brexit gang.
But while the Europeans were doing their usual “nein, non, no” act, May was booted out and the document was stored as a historical memento . . . or so we thought.
Now with the soft-Brexit gang back in control under Sir Keir Starmer, the dust is being blown off what I’m told is an already fairly hefty legal text.
Back we go into the orbit of the EU, with the PM publicly confirming last night he is seeking the same security deal, despite us already being front and centre of the world’s most successful defence accord already: Nato.
“I’m not driven by ideology, but by what’s best for my country,” our adenoidal new premier claimed.
“I believe that the UK and the EU working together as sovereign partners are a powerful force for good across our continent”.
As Sir Keir Returner back-slapped Emmanuel Macron and supped Guinness with the Taoiseach, the Europeans could barely hide their glee.
All those nasty Brexiteers that had made the lives of the gilded Euro-elite so ’orrible were gone.
And when the PM took the knee to the European Convention on Human Rights there was a spontaneous rendition of La Marseillaise from the EU leaders, like the bar in Casablanca.
Well not quite, but as Ireland’s Simon Harris purred at the European Political Community meeting at Oxfordshire’s glorious Blenheim Palace: “There’s been a gamechanger now.”
And he patted Starmer on the head for saying, “very publicly here today in front of European Union leaders and others from the European family, that he wants to have a closer relationship with Europe . . . the importance of multilateralism, staying within the ECHR”.
Given how disgracefully the Irish behaved as Brussels’ puppet during those long years of Brexit negotiations, warning bells should be ringing.
All the wrong people are smiling . . .
As Starmer gushed last night: “The impression I get is that there is a real appetite” for close ties with the UK.”
Yes, Prime Minister, they are going to eat your breakfast.
For all the smiles and handshakes, what Starmer has still not told us is what he is willing to surrender for these closer ties
Harry Cole
As former EU negotiator Lord Frost warned on Never Mind The Ballots a few weeks ago: “If the EU gives you something, it wants something back.”
For all the smiles and handshakes, what Starmer has still not told us is what he is willing to surrender for these closer ties.
As Frost said: “As we learned, and every British leader has learned, doing a deal or coming to an understanding with a European leader is never enough.
“The EU has lots and lots of its own collective interests so therefore never ever gives anything away.”
So what is on the menu to feed that appetite, Sir Keir? And if I may, how can anyone look at what is going on across the Channel right now and think, “Ooh la la, let’s have some of that”?
Macron has had some of the smugness wiped off his face by his humbling at the ballot box.
His botched attempt to see off the Right now leaves the poor French facing rule by a ragtag alliance of socialists and old communists.
No wonder he is finally willing to be more cooperative on migrants all of a sudden.
The forecasters predict that next year we will grow faster than France and Germany — their cities unrecognisable in places.
Hungary is sucking up to Putin.
And the Spanish?
Well, look no closer than them celebrating their Euros win with a good old chorus of “Gibraltar es Espana”.
Brussels is so riven that EU President Ursula von der Leyen couldn’t even make yesterday’s summit as she was forced to stay at the EU Parliament to beg for votes to stay in her job.
She scraped through even though she was the sole candidate.
And yet the PM is offering up everything to them on a plate?
They should be begging us for closer ties, not the other way around.
Good negotiations come from a position of strength, not neediness.
If you are hell-bent on reopening all those tedious years of talks Sir Keir, at least play it cool a bit.
WHAT happens if Rishi Sunak decides that next week’s PMQs is quite enough service to the Tories and cuts short his time as Leader of the Opposition?
Who could blame him, frankly?
He had a big photo of his wife and kids on the inside of his briefing notes when speaking in the Commons this week, so he’s clearly got his eyes on the exit.
I hear ex-Deputy PM Oliver Dowden has made it clear he has no interest in being interim leader and potentially responding to a Budget in September.
Instead the men in grey suits at Wednesday’s meeting of the 1922 Committee were pushing ex-Tory leader Sir Iain Duncan Smith to step up.
It would be quite the comeback for the quiet man.
SOME in No10 are finding it harder to get their feet under their new desks than others.
Quite literally in the case of Morgan McSweeney, Starmer’s campaign guru turned Director of Political Strategy, who has found his desk moved not once but twice in just two weeks.
Each time he has got a little further away from the boss.
Insiders try to play down any idea of a turf war between him and Starmer’s all-powerful Chief of Staff Sue Gray . . . but she does control the floorplan.
Something is amiss behind that famous black door, though, after a campaign of rigid message discipline.
An incendiary briefing to The Times about Gray being accused of bypassing ministers to meddle in a £300million contract for the Northern Ireland football stadium had Labour aides’ jaws on the floor.
I thought the grown-ups were meant to be back in charge?
