Tories accuse Starmer of ‘undemocratic hit job’ after report the UK could pay £1bn to access EU single market – UK politics live

On Sky News Mel Stride, the shadow chancellor, has just said that in principle his party welcomes the announcement from Keir Starmer about joining the EU’s €90bn loan for Ukraine. (See 8.40am.) But he would want to see the details, Stride said.

However, his colleague Priti Patel, the shadow foreign secretary, was a lot less happy about the Times report suggesting the UK could end up paying the EU up to £1bn a year for better access to the single market.

In his Times report, Oliver Wright says:

double quotation markEuropean negotiators have made it clear that paying the cash, expected to amount to about £1bn a year, is a condition of further access to the EU’s single market.

They want Starmer to make the concession in principle at a summit between the prime minister and European leaders this summer before detailed negotiations on more integration.

“If the UK wants further integration they must ‘pay to play’,” one European diplomat said. “That is not unusual.”

The govenrment has not denied the story, although it has suggested it does not recognise the £1bn figure.

Commenting on the report, Patel said:

double quotation markStarmer is unpicking Brexit and planning another undemocratic hit job on British taxpayers by signing us up to a £1bn annual payment to the EU.

Once again, this weak prime minister goes to the negotiating table, comes home empty-handed, having fleeced hard pressed taxpayers with his terrible judgment.