Sir Keir Starmer has said plenty of times that he wants a closer relationship with the EU. It was part of his 2024 general election platform, albeit in fairly unspecific terms.
It was announced at the first annual UK-EU summit 11 months ago that the UK is negotiating deals with the EU on food and drink standards, carbon emissions and electricity.
Where it gets more complicated is that the government wants "dynamic" alignment: which means not only following EU rules as they stand now in those three areas, but continuing to follow them over time as they change.
There will be a vote on all this in Parliament when the government introduces legislation later this year.
But as the government updates UK rules to match European rules over time, there may not necessarily be further votes - that process is known as secondary legislation.
