Ed Davey speech on Europe: “A new plan for growth, jobs and defence”

17 Jun 2026

Liberal Democrat Leader Ed Davey has delivered a keynote speech today [Wednesday 17th June] setting out plans for a bold new partnership with the EU, including deepening defence ties and joining the single market.

In his keynote address to the European Movement’s ‘Future in Europe’ event today [Wednesday 17th June] Davey challenged Andy Burnham to scrap Labour’s red lines on the customs union and single market if he becomes Prime Minister and begin talks immediately on an ambitious new deal with the EU.

Davey has outlined the Liberal Democrats’ plan for a new comprehensive Growth and Defence Partnership with the EU which would include the UK beginning talks immediately on joining the EU’s single market and a customs union, tearing down barriers for business and boosting trade with Britain’s biggest market.

The Liberal Democrats are also calling for much deeper defence cooperation between the UK and European partners. This would include establishing a European Security Council, which would improve the coordination of Europe’s rearmament drive and ability of allies to deliver NATO’s operational requirements.

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Good afternoon friends.

We meet at an extraordinary moment.

Vladimir Putin is still waging war on our continent.

Donald Trump’s chaos in the Middle East goes on.

And our government is paralysed by infighting. Waiting for Makerfield to release them from their agony.

And yet, despite all that – standing with you here today – I feel hope.

Not just about England’s chances against Croatia tonight! But hope about our country’s future.

Not hope because the path ahead is easy. It isn’t.

Not hope because everything will magically get better. It won’t.

But hope because finally – after ten long, difficult years – I believe we can move on.

We can finally fix the Brexit damage. End the Brexit chaos. And get our country back on track.

Because the story the media won’t tell you –

As they fawn over the rise of Farage. As they hang on his every empty press conference –

Is that the country is with us.

We hear it on the doorsteps. We see it in the polls. We feel it in our communities.

People are fed up. They’ve had enough.

Enough of the chaos in Government. The queues at ports and airports. The bills that just keep on going up.

They know the hard truth that most politicians won’t admit: the Brexit experiment has failed.

And it’s failed all of us.

Ninety billion pounds a year.

That’s how much it’s costing us all as taxpayers.

Ninety billion pounds. Every year. Gone.

That’s 250 million every single day.

Taken away from our schools, our hospitals, our Armed Forces.

Taken out of everyone’s pockets, in the form of unfair tax rises.

Not because of a pandemic. Not because of a war. Not because of some force of nature out of our control.

But because of their Brexit experiment. Boris Johnson. Nigel Farage. And the rest.

An experiment that has now consumed a decade of British politics.

That has tangled British businesses up in pointless red tape.

That has pushed up prices for British families.

And has left us all poorer.

Well – not all of us, apparently.

Farage says that five million he got from a crypto billionaire was his “reward” for Brexit.

So when he said “we’ll be better off after Brexit”, it turns out he was using the royal “we”.

But it’s not only the economic impact – as disastrous as that’s been.

It’s the way they have poisoned our relationship with our nearest neighbours and friends.

Making it harder to work together on all the things we need to do:

Energy security and climate change. Migration and refugees. AI and – above all – defence.

Britain has always been at its best when we stand tall with our European allies. Not when we shut ourselves off.

They promised us “Global Britain”. But they have left us isolated at the worst possible time.

Poorer, weaker and more insecure.

Their experiment has failed. We all know it. So it’s time to move on.

But what do they say? The ones who caused all this. The people responsible. Farage and the Conservative Party?

They say “Tough”.

They say you can’t move on.

They say you can’t question Britain’s relationship with Europe now. You can’t dare to suggest there might be a better way.

Doesn’t matter how bad it gets. Doesn't matter how much you’re struggling. You just have to live with it. They say.

We say “No”.

We say Britain shouldn’t have to live with the bad deal they’ve lumped us with.

We say our country deserves far better than that.

Theirs is old thinking. It’s 2016 thinking.

The world has changed dramatically since then.

It’s time for us to change too. It’s time for us to move on. Move forward.

Just look around.

Vladimir Putin is bombing schools and hospitals in Ukraine. Murdering innocent civilians.

He is testing NATO's resolve – and setting his sights on the rest of Eastern Europe.

He has shown that territorial conquest is not some relic of the distant past. It is happening now, on European soil, to our friends and allies who share our values and our way of life.

Donald Trump is torching the world economy for fun.

With his tariffs, and his trade wars, and now his actual war with Iran.

And he is ripping up the rules-based international order that generations of leaders – British leaders, American leaders, European leaders – painstakingly built after the Second World War.

He’s threatening NATO, emboldening Putin, and actively meddling in our democracies.

And then there’s China – increasingly using trade, supply chains, and strategic dependencies as instruments of geopolitical competition.

And to add to all these changes, there’s the billionaire tech barons, taking more and more control over our lives and our jobs. With their empires of AI and social media that no one nation can govern on its own.

The assumptions we have all lived by for decades – that global trade would keep expanding, that international rules would broadly be respected, that our security would be underwritten by a stable alliance – those assumptions no longer hold.

The world has changed. More rapidly than at any time since the end of the Cold War.

And our politics must change too.

We obviously can’t turn to those who wrecked it. Farage and the Conservatives.

They only want to make things worse – even now pushing for Brexit 2.0 with their plans to rip up the European Convention on Human Rights.

They would just re-run all the old arguments. Forcing Britain to replay the last ten years over and over in a never-ending Brexit doom loop.

But nor, I’m afraid, can we look to Labour.

Labour, who have failed to act with anything like the urgency this moment demands.

Who don’t even seem to grasp the scale of the change we need in our relationship with Europe.

Labour, who still keep us hemmed into the red lines they set more than five years ago.

No single market. No customs union.

Red lines they set before Putin invaded Ukraine. Before Trump returned to the White House.

Red lines that were wrong then, and are even more wrong now.

The world has changed. And it’s time to move on.

We cannot be trapped by that old thinking anymore.

We have to look to the future. Not back to 2016, but to 2036 and beyond.

And that’s why we are all here today, isn’t it?

Not because we’re bitter about the past, but because we believe in a better future.

Because we love our country – and we know its brightest days still lie ahead.

We’re here for our children and our grandchildren. Because we want them to inherit a country that is growing, that is confident, that is leading – not one that is shrinking, stagnating, and standing alone.

That’s what drives us.

We are here because the world has changed.

Because the challenges we face – to our economy, to our society, and to our national defence – are real and urgent.

And because we believe Britain deserves ambition that matches the scale of this moment.

So what does that ambition look like?

Well first, the government needs to drop those old red lines that stop us getting rid of the Conservatives’ red tape.

Those red lines are holding Britain back.

They are hurting the British people.

And they are playing into the hands of Farage and Reform.

So my message to Andy Burnham, to Wes Streeting – to whoever the next Prime Minister may be – is this:

Drop those red lines. Drop them now.

So we can move on from the torpor and timidity that marks out Labour’s approach to Europe so far.

We can put an end to the endless talk of a “reset”, that so far seems to just mean saying “No” more politely than the Conservatives did.

And we can get on with properly fixing our relationship with Europe. For our economy. For our security. For our future.

Our party has led that debate for years. Last year, days before Trump took office, we set out plans for the UK to join a new Customs Union with the EU.

And today, I want to build on that and go further – much further.

Today, we are calling for a new Growth and Defence Partnership with the European Union.

A bold new deal that will make Britain richer, safer, and stronger.

Including a Customs Union, but also – crucially – taking Britain back into the Single Market.

Tearing down the barriers to trade. Ending the mountains of paperwork. The costs. The delays. The queues.

Giving our young people the chance to study and work, live and love anywhere in the EU.

Undoing the damage of the Johnson-Farage Brexit deal that has held our economy back for so long.

Giving British businesses the certainty they need to invest, to hire, and to grow.

Giving Britain’s economy the boost it needs after years of stagnation.

And giving Britain’s public finances a growth dividend –

Tens of billions of pounds that we would use to cut the cost of living, to fix the NHS, and to strengthen our Armed Forces.

But this new partnership must go beyond trade and growth.

In the age of Putin, Xi and Trump, this must be about defence and security too.

No country can be prosperous and free if it is not safe.

And Britain can help lead on defence in Europe – as we have so decisively in the past.

Despite the Conservatives’ shortsighted cuts to our Armed Forces – and Labour’s chaos over investing in them now – Britain is still one of Europe's foremost military powers.

We are a leading intelligence nation, a permanent member of the UN Security Council, and the third biggest contributor to NATO.

We should be using those strengths. We should be at the table, helping to shape Europe’s security future. Not watching from the sidelines.

And Europe wants us at the table. They know they need our leadership on defence.

So let’s seize the initiative – from a position of strength – to form a new partnership that strengthens both Britain’s economy and our collective security.

That is why our new partnership would be about defence as much as it is about growth.

That means financial cooperation through a new European Rearmament Bank, alongside securing UK access to the 150 billion euro SAFE programme.

It means joint defence procurement – creating jobs in Britain while strengthening our collective capabilities.

It means deeper cooperation on intelligence, on cyber security, and on protecting critical infrastructure.

It means working together on energy security – so that none of us can be held hostage by an authoritarian regime turning off the gas.

It means political cooperation through a new European Security Council, with a permanent seat for the UK.

Ensuring that Europe can shoulder greater responsibility for its own security within NATO – as Trump’s actions remind us every day that we cannot afford to rely so much on the United States.

Friends, this is not a choice we can afford to dodge any longer.

In the face of Putin’s threat and Trump’s unpredictability, a new defence pact with Europe –

With allies on whom we can depend. Allies who share our interests and our values –

is the only way to keep Britain safe and defend our values in a dangerous world.

A new defence pact with Europe is not a choice. It is a necessity.

So let’s get on with it.

That is the ambition we need when it comes to our relationship with Europe.

No more tinkering around the edges of a bad deal.

No more shackling ourselves to the arguments of the last ten years.

But building something new. A partnership fit for the enormous challenges we face today.

A new Growth and Defence Partnership.

And a new pact for our collective security.

Forming a Customs Union.

Joining the Single Market.

A new partnership to make us richer, safer and stronger.

The best hope our country has to stop the chaos and end the crisis.

And the biggest step we could take now back towards membership of the EU. The best future for Britain.

And there’s another big step we need to take too. Defeating Nigel Farage and Reform.

To stop them from turning our United Kingdom into their version of Trump’s America.

And because – until we do defeat them – Europe will not countenance Britain joining.

And let’s remember why this matters.

Why it’s so crucial for Britain to be there – at the heart of Europe. At the table with our nearest neighbours.

I’ve seen it myself. The power we have when Britain leads in Europe.

When Vladimir Putin invaded Crimea in 2014, we recognised then that the way to defeat him would be to get Europe off its dependence on Russian oil and gas.

To take away the money that was funding his aggression. To bankrupt his Russian war machine.

So I led Britain’s efforts to bring Europe together behind that common cause – and we succeeded.

We wrote Europe’s energy security strategy.

Britain did that. Sitting at the table. Leading in Europe.

We brought together governments more worried about action on energy security with those more worried about action on climate change – by showing them that, in this case, they were the same thing.

Britain did that.

But then – instead of seeing it through – the Conservatives walked away.

They gave up Britain’s seat at the table – they locked us out of those discussions – at the worst possible time.

Just imagine where we could be now if Britain had continued to lead on energy security.

Imagine how much weaker Putin would be.

Imagine how much safer Ukraine – and the rest of Europe, including Britain – would be now.

What a terrible waste.

And that’s why I’m so determined to get us back. Back at the table. Back at the heart of Europe.

Britain leading again.

Now, I want to speak for a moment about the bigger picture.

Because our ambition is not limited to Europe alone.

It’s about Britain’s place in the world.

The old assumption that trade, security and prosperity could be treated as separate issues no longer holds.

Supply chains can be disrupted. Energy can be weaponised.

Economic security and national security are now inseparable.

At a time when authoritarian powers are doing so much to undermine our security, democratic nations must work more closely together to enhance it.

As Mark Carney said in Davos, “Middle powers must act together – because if we’re not at the table, we’re on the menu.”

He is right.

Fixing our relationship with Europe is the essential foundation. But it is not the ceiling.

The UK can be an incredible force for good when it stands tall on the world stage.

Our history, our alliances and our relationships across every continent give us a unique position to act as a bridge – not just between Europe and the US, but between Europe and the wider democratic world.

We are here because we believe that our country and our people thrive when we are open and outward-looking.

That is Britain at its best.

Not a small, inward-looking island. Clinging to the wreckage of a failed experiment.

But a leader. A convening power. A country that helps shape the international order rather than being buffeted by it.

That is the Britain we can be.

But friends, I want to be honest with you about the task ahead.

What we are proposing is bold. It is ambitious.

It requires courage. It requires leadership. And it will not happen without all of us.

We know the obstacles we face.

The arguments ahead.

The opponents who would rather replay the last ten years instead of moving on from them.

Who will tell us we can’t even talk about a new deal with Europe. Let alone make one.