Sir Keir Starmer was last night accused of forming an EU ‘surrender squad’ to reverse Brexit.
An all-powerful team of more than 100 civil servants is being assembled to run the UK’s negotiations with Brussels – with insiders claiming its purpose is to negate the historic 2016 vote to leave the EU.
Last night, critics warned that the Prime Minister was on the brink of jettisoning the freedoms and opportunities of Brexit to permanently lash the UK to an EU superstate, and return us to the role of rule-taker rather than rule-maker.
Ahead of any talks for closer UK-EU trade ties, Brussels is expected to demand freedom of movement for young people, an acceptance of EU laws and the continued right for the European nations to fish in British waters beyond 2026.
Insiders say the new team, to be established in the heart of the Cabinet Office, will aim to ensure that any concessions yielded to Brussels will be almost impossible to undo by a future Tory government.
A source said: ‘The officials are being drawn from every government department, and they have been told that they will have full powers to demand whatever they need from any corner of Whitehall to make the reset work.’
Last night Tory leader Kemi Badenoch accused Sir Keir of ‘taking us backwards’.
She said: ‘In every negotiation – from trade union pay deals to the Chagos islands – Keir Starmer has given away everything for nothing in return.
‘The question now is what price we all pay for the Prime Minister to take us back to his EU comfort zone?’
The Mail on Sunday understands the new EU unit will be situated in plum seats in the Cabinet Office – close to the door to No 10 – which are currently occupied by senior national security officials.
It will be run by a £200,000-a-year civil servant with the title of Second Permanent Secretary, European Union and International Economic Affairs who will report to Nick Thomas Symonds, the Minister for European Union Relations.
Lord Frost, Boris Johnson’s former Brexit negotiator said Labour instinctively wanted to rejoin the EU.
He said: ‘The plan has been blown by the fact that they can’t hide the creation of this Surrender Squad in the Cabinet Office. This huge unit is getting ready for a major renegotiation – it will have more people than I had for the original deal with the EU in 2020.
‘Everyone in this Government really wants to rejoin the EU one day. Only public opinion is stopping them. So they are trying to act in secrecy and conceal their plans to align with EU rules, to bring back EU law and to give away our fishing grounds, by calling all this just a “reset”.
‘Unless we can stop them, the reset will end with this country once again in the EU’s orbit, gradually losing our ability to set our own rules and make our own laws. It’s time for those who support our national independence and democracy to wake up.’
Meanwhile, the EU believes it has the ‘right opportunity’ to press for concessions from Britain following the change in government.
The Prime Minister will join European Commission president Ursula von der Leyen and EU leaders in February, in what will be the first meeting between a British leader and the bloc’s 27 members since Brexit. It follows Chancellor Rachel Reeves’s trip last week to join a meeting of EU finance ministers.
EU negotiators have made clear that they would not remove trade barriers without ‘dynamic alignment’ – Brussels jargon for British goods and services being subject to EU red tape, such as speed warnings in cars and compulsory tethers for bottle caps.
A source said: ‘The key aim of this unit appears to make it easier to roll EU rules and demands into UK law without the need for primary legislation.
The aim is to dig the process so deep into Whitehall that a future Tory government would find it very difficult to unwind. This could be done by failing to include an exit clause in the deal, or including a long termination clause of five years or more.
‘The importance of the “reset” is clear from the fact that it is being run from the Cabinet Office not the Foreign Office. It is all being choreographed: the first stage will be a new security deal, which will be announced in February, then probably a surrender summit in the spring. Labour is desperate to get back in the club.’
The Government is reluctant to strike a trade deal with Donald Trump’s America which could lead to factory-farmed US products such as chlorinated chicken driving higher-quality British goods off the shelves.
The EU’s blueprint, which will be presented to European ministers in the coming days, says the UK must agree to ‘the maintenance of the status quo’ on access for European boats to UK waters before talks can even begin.
Fishermen have branded it a ‘neo-colonial relationship.’ The document also makes clear that the EU will do a deal on food exports only if Sir Keir agrees to put all existing – and future – European laws on food and agriculture into British legislation.
It would require the Government to abide by rulings from the European Court of Justice.
A central demand by the EU is for a ‘youth experience scheme’, which would grant visas to 18-30- year-olds to live and work in the UK, with free healthcare and subsidised education.
It comes as the Government is attempting to cut back the million legal migrants who enter the country each year.
A Government spokesman said: ‘This Government is resetting its relationship with the EU and wants to strengthen cooperation, to make people safer and tackle barriers to trade, to help drive economic growth.
‘There will be no return to the customs union, single market or freedom of movement. The UK Government will always work to protect the interests of our fishers.’
A Cabinet Office source said: ‘The team includes members of the Windsor Framework taskforce, which was established to try to fix the huge holes left in Lord Frost’s botched deal when it came to Northern Ireland.’
They added that Lord Frost’s assertion that Labour wanted to rejoin the EU was ‘completely untrue’.