Are we ready for a “Brexit reset”?
The Politics Show
The New Statesman
4.2 • 1.5K Ratings
🗓️ 8 January 2026
⏱️ 33 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Keir Starmer is planning on developing a “closer relationship” with the single market.
The PM wants to realign with the EU in three key areas to help the free flow of trade: food and farm exports, electricity and emissions trading.
But what will this mean for Britain, and how is it going down in Westminster?
Anoosh Chakelian is joined by associate political editor, Rachel Cunliffe.
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | The New Statesman. |
| 0:05.7 | Are we ready for a Brexit reset? |
| 0:08.9 | Instead of focusing on the customs union, Kirstama is planning on developing a closer relationship with the single market. |
| 0:15.8 | The Prime Minister wants to realign with the EU in three key areas to help the free flow of trade, |
| 0:38.0 | food and farm exports, electricity and emissions trading. But what will this mean for Britain and how is it going down in Westminster? I'm Anusha Kellyan and this is Daily Politics from the New Statesman. Joining me today is our associate political editor, Rachel Cunliff. Hi, Rachel. Hello, happy New Year. It's all feeling very 2018. It really is. Happy old year. Yeah. The Brexit wars are back. I know. And at the risk of |
| 0:43.4 | triggering you, let's go back to the basics for a second in case any of our listeners stopped paying |
| 0:49.1 | attention to this saga over the ensuing years. What is the single market and the customs union? What's the |
| 0:55.3 | difference? And can you be part of one without being part of the EU? And what would it mean for |
| 1:00.3 | closer ties with the EU for Britain? So I thought that I was able to just let go of all this |
| 1:06.0 | knowledge after after 2020. So having to go back and dust off definitions. You can be in the single market, |
| 1:13.9 | but not in the EU. And that's what Norway does. That's what Iceland does. The single market is |
| 1:20.1 | like a turbocharged free trade area where as well as having a free trade agreement that means you don't have tariffs on trade |
| 1:29.9 | with each other and you set the same regulatory standards across all of your industries. And also, |
| 1:37.4 | this is the crucial bit, it involves the free movement of goods, services, capital and people. |
| 1:42.4 | Those are the four freedoms. Those are the four freedoms. |
| 1:44.8 | And people is the main one because we pretty much know that, you know, barring some, |
| 1:52.5 | you know, quite dramatic U-turn, no UK government is going to go back to free movement |
| 1:58.9 | of people with the EU. |
| 2:00.1 | So that immediately puts us out of the single market. |
| 2:05.2 | And from that point on, what we're looking at are different models for closer trading relations with the EU and closer agreement on alignment of regulation |
| 2:19.6 | and sort of those sort of sector by sector agreements. |
| 2:22.9 | The confusing thing is that there is this idea of the customs union, |
... |
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