Why does Starmer want closer ties with Europe?

The reality is Europe has always benefited more from the UK than the UK has from the EU.

The UK has always imported more goods from the EU than we have exported.  

In 2018 the UK exported £303 Billion but imported £357 Billion.

Compare that to today now we have left the EU we export £350 Billion but import a whopping £485 Billion. 

Clearly leaving the EU has done little to stop the supply of goods from the EU into the UK. Exports to the EU since 2019 have pretty much kept pace with inflation so leaving has very little impact. 

So why rejoin?  It would simply open the floodgates to yet more imports from the EU which is unlikely to benefit the UK economy. It's exports of our products which generate wealth for the UK - not imports.

So why is Starmer so keen to create closer trade ties with the EU?  It won't increase our exports - they have in reality not been affected by Brexit.  If we didnt get massive gains from being in the EU when we were in it then why would rejoining improve things?

I suspect the reason is that Starmer wants his next job to be in the huge bureaucratic EU blob....

I first noticed this disparity with the EU back in 2010 - long before Brexit.  I was doing some analysis on the EU tender process.  I noticed that only about 10% of UK government contracts were awarded to British companies and the bulk were awarded to European companies - in particular Germany.  When I analysed German procurement contracts 98% were awarded to German companies.  Further analysis revealed a similar story across Europe where contracts were generally awarded in their home market.  The only exception was Poland which had a similar award pattern to the UK. 

So the UK was playing by the rules - but no-one else was.

So what can we do about this? 

One thing I can think of is that UK Police forces tend to buy German cars.  There is no standard Police car.  They are bought on a case-by-case basis.  If we had a tough government, we should centralise the purchasing of police cars and get a volume deal.  We should insist that they are open to competitive tender.  For example Tesla might give a far better price than say BMW.

This pattern of buying is probably widespread across UK procurement.  I understand the NHS pays many times more for paracetamol than I pay in my local shop..... How bizzare.

If the UK ever does re-join the EU the terms need to be in our favour.  The EU currently benefits more from us than we do from them to the tune of £135 Billion per year !! Why should we be the weaker party in this relationship? Sadly weak Starmer rolls over on everything.  You only have to look at Erasmus. 

He's agreed to give the EU £570M to rejoin the scheme. This is money we havent got and will have to borrow.  This money could have gone to defence budgets....

In the final year of the UK's participation in Erasmus, back in 2020, there were 9,900 UK students went abroad and 16,100 came to the UK.  The UK paid somewhere in the region of £200-£300 Million into Erasmus in 2020 and received  £126 Million (EU 146M) back.

So basically we were subsiding foreign students to come to the UK and learn English. Now some probably stayed and are net contributors to the economy. But looking at it selfishly we sent 9,900 students abroad for say 1 year at a cost of £200 Million (using the lower estimate since the data is not available). That's an "investment" of £20,200 in each student.

The numbers dont make sense.

If we do re-join, the business case needs to make sense and the numbers need to be transparent.