Reform and Conservative party leaders in the UK have strongly condemned Labour PM Keir Starmer after he agreed to the most comprehensive ‘Brexit reset’ deal since the country left the EU in 2020 during a summit with EU Commission President Ursula von der Leyen and European Council chief António Costa in London on Monday, May 19th.
The new cooperation agreements cover a wide range of areas from defense, energy, trade, and fishing, as well as leave room for several other policy areas that are still up for negotiation.
Reform party leader Nigel Farage called the deal “an abject surrender,” adding that allowing EU fishing vessels back onto the British seas under the 12-year contract would be “the end of the fishing industry.”
Labour have well and truly sold out our fishing industry, all in the name of closer ties to an ever-diminishing political union.https://t.co/qxStDT803S
— Nigel Farage MP (@Nigel_Farage) May 19, 2025
Tory leader Kemi Badenoch also slammed Starmer for making the UK “a rule-taker from Brussels once again.”
But the most outspoken criticism came from former conservative PM Boris Johnson, who delivered Brexit in the first place, saying this “total sell out” deal will turn the UK once again “into the orange ball chewing, leather-truss gimp of Brussels.”
“I think it’s a complete and deliberate betrayal of Brexit, and it goes against what [Starmer] said he was going to do at the election in 2024,” Johnson told GB News. “Worst of all, he’s decided we can pay for all this. We can pay for the privilege of once again being ruled, in many ways, by Brussels.”
Apart from the landmark fisheries deal, the other central element of the pact is a defense cooperation agreement, which allows the UK to participate in the EU’s giant joint procurement schemes under the €800 billion ReArm Europe program—in exchange for aligning its foreign policy with Brussels in strategic and defense matters.
Other elements of the deal include:
- Joining the EU’s carbon-emission trading market (Starmer claims the EU carbon tax won’t apply to UK companies, but details are hazy)
- Dismantling some of the trade barriers, moving closer to the single market
- Developing joint energy networks, exploring the possibility of joining the EU’s energy market
- Expansion of the youth mobility scheme, and working toward rejoining the Erasmus program
- Allowing British travelers to use more self-service passport checks at European airports
- Deeper cooperation against illegal migration, including sharing intelligence
Von der Leyen and Costa reportedly pushed for more, but Starmer ‘heroically’ resisted. However, conservatives warned that there’s no guarantee that the PM’s “red lines” today—fully reinstating the single market and the free movement of EU citizens—will remain so tomorrow, given all the other promises he walked back on for the deal.
“The UK is being tied closer and closer to the European Single Market, unable to deviate, unable to do things differently,” Johnson said. “I don’t want to see our country become the punk of Brussels, I don’t want to see our country become a non-voting member of the EU, I don’t want to see our country returning to unfettered free movement of 80 million people eligible to come from the European Union, I don’t want to see us have to accept rules when we have no say.”
“I think it’s anti-democratic and I don’t think this agreement should be signed. The next Conservative Government, and God pray it’s a Conservative Government, should get rid of this thing lock, stock and barrel,” the former PM added.
'The Labour Prime minister has thrown away that massive negotiating advantage for absolutely nothing in return.'
— GB News (@GBNEWS) May 19, 2025
Former Prime Minister Boris Johnson says the 'remain establishment' have collaborated with the EU to 'abandon' gains in the UK fishing industry. pic.twitter.com/1HlryvuLw2