The U.K. and the EU announce new deals and renew ties, 5 years after Brexit

Contributing sentiments towards policy:

58% : LONDON (AP) -- Britain's government said Monday it has struck new agreements with the European Union on boosting defense cooperation, easing food trade and border checks, as the two sides met for the first formal summit since Brexit.
53% : Other agreements include removing some checks on animal and plant products to ease food trade across borders, and a 12-year extension of an agreement allowing EU fishing vessels in U.K. waters.
52% : Since becoming prime minister in July, Starmer has sought to reset relations with the EU, following years of tensions in the wake of the U.K.'s 2016 Brexit referendum.
52% : The changes will mean the U.K. can sell products like British burgers and sausages to the EU again, officials said.
51% : While the EU is the U.K.'s largest trading partner, the U.K. has been hit with a 21% drop in exports since Brexit because of more onerous border checks, laborious paperwork and other non-tariff barriers.
50% : Prime Minister Keir Starmer, who met European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen and other senior EU officials in London for talks, said the deals will slash red tape, grow the British economy and reset relations with the 27-nation trade bloc since the U.K. left the EU in 2020.
43% : Reform, which recently won big in local elections, and the opposition Conservative Party have already called the deal a "surrender" to the EU before any details were confirmed.
40% : Starmer has stressed that the U.K. won't rejoin the EU's frictionless single market and customs union, nor agree to the free movement of people between the U.K. and the EU.
38% : Some of the trade-offs may prove difficult for Starmer, who faces growing challenges from the pro-Brexit and anti-immigration Reform U.K. party and will likely see accusations of "betraying Brexit," whatever the outcome of the talks.
37% : "The reset could still be blown off course by disagreements over how to consolidate existing areas of cooperation like fisheries and/or external factors, such as a negative reaction from the U.S. to the U.K. seeking closer ties with the EU," said Jannike Wachowiak, research associate at the UK in a Changing Europe think tank.
20% : U.S. President Donald Trump, who has backed Brexit, could also be a potential headache for Starmer.

*Our bias meter rating uses data science including sentiment analysis, machine learning and our proprietary algorithm for determining biases in news articles. Bias scores are on a scale of -100% to 100% with higher negative scores being more liberal and higher positive scores being more conservative, and 0% being neutral. The rating is an independent analysis and is not affiliated nor sponsored by the news source or any other organization.