British involvement in European Union-led armed forces looks more likely, as indicated by documents to be signed as part of Brussels’s programme of rearmament.
Drafted for the London EU-UK summit on May 19th, the document states that Prime Minister Keir Starmer would be obliged to consider deploying British forces on both “civilian missions and military operations and missions, upon the invitation of the EU.”
In return, UK-based defence industries could earn access to the bloc’s £127 billion (€150 billion) set aside for military expenditure as part of the Safe fund agreement. The price? Third parties from outside the 27 member states
must have entered into a security and defence partnership in order to open up eligibility …. The UK will consider its participation in the EU CSDP [European Common Security and Defence Policy, ed.] civilian missions and military operations and missions, upon the invitation of the EU.
While to date the EU has undertaken more than 40 such missions, potential British troop deployments are evidence of what Brexiteers saw as the formation of an ‘EU army’ (and were attacked as scaremongers for these claims).
The Telegraph also reports that Brussels was guaranteed a further three years of access to British waters, in an additional snub to Britain having left the EU following the Brexit referendum. Concessions on fishing rights were another precondition to drafting the military document—as welcomed by UK Foreign Secretary David Lammy—in its current form.
