Burak Bir
05 February 2025•Update: 05 February 2025
LONDON
The Brexit deal did not address security and defense cooperation issues, as Britain aims to pursue "ruthless pragmatism" in search of mutually beneficial areas of interest for both sides as part of UK-EU Reset negotiations.
British Minister for European Union Relations Nick Thomas-Symonds, in an opinion piece for The Telegraph published on Tuesday, stated that for the UK government, a reset with the EU means Britain "being safer, more secure, and increasingly prosperous."
He admitted that although people voted to leave the EU to get better public services, more jobs, less migration, and more security, what they got instead was "years of chaos and a botched deal."
His article on the UK-EU Reset came as five years have passed since the UK official left the EU.
In the 2016 Brexit referendum, the majority of people voted in favor of the withdrawal of the country from the EU.
After the Brexit agreement was signed by representatives from Britain and the EU on Jan. 24, 2020, the UK officially withdrew from the bloc on Jan. 31 of that year.
"Yet, five years on, we can see some of the negative impacts of the current deal emerging here at home, as well as in Europe," Thomas-Symonds stated.
'Mutually beneficial areas of interest for both sides'
The British minister noted that along with economic problems, borders after Brexit are also less secure, with the asylum system having been "pushed into crisis."
He went on to say that the Brexit deal did not address issues around security and defense cooperation.
Touching on the "false argument" that the UK needs to choose either America or Europe, Thomas-Symonds underlined that for his government, the UK’s national interest is paramount and "demands we work with both."
"We will do so with a ruthless pragmatism, leaving ideologically driven division in the past in search of mutually beneficial areas of interest for both sides, within our red lines of no return to the single market, customs union, or freedom of movement," he noted.
Since his first days in office, Prime Minister Keir Starmer has prioritized the UK-EU reset as a top agenda item for his government's foreign policy to help boost growth, improve the cost of living crisis, and make the borders more secure.
A month after his election in July, he held a two-day Europe tour to "turn a corner on Brexit and fix the broken relationships.
The trend continues with Starmer's latest exchange during a summit dinner in Brussels on Monday night.
The latest development on the "reset" came on Tuesday as his office announced that Starmer will host the European Council President Antonio Costa and European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen on May 19, which will be the first UK-EU Leaders’ Summit.
