Andrew Duff / Jan 2025
Image: Shutterstock
The British are well known for changing their minds about Europe. Having spurned the Treaties of Paris and Rome that established the European Community, the UK applied to join in 1961. Ten years later, Prime Minister Edward Heath reactivated the membership bid, admitting that in the immediate post war years Britain had been ‘less immediately conscious of the need for us to become part of the unity of Europe’.
Forty-five years on, David Cameron sprang a referendum on UK membership, which he promptly lost. After Cameron quit, four more Tory prime ministers failed in their endeavour to ‘make Brexit work’ for the UK. Remarkably, however, the new Labour Prime Minister, who once campaigned for a second referendum, is still trying to accommodate Brexit. Keir Starmer has tasked his ministers to fiddle at the edges of the post-Brexit Trade and Cooperation Agreement while refusing to join the EU customs union or single market. This is bound to be a complex, costly and time-consuming exercise that promises to deliver little material improvement to the UK’s relationship with the EU. Nor will UK free trade agreements with third countries outside the EU’s common commercial policy yield more than negligible economic results.
The EU, meanwhile, looks on. Angela Merkel records her disappointment that the UK had left the EU ‘in the lurch’ and deems that Brexit ‘changed the EU in the view of the world: we were weakened’. But the EU has other pressing matters now commanding attention. Brussels will not act to bring the UK closer to the fold unless and until a frustrated Starmer comes up with coherent and comprehensive proposals to transform the relationship.
The likelihood of such a volte-face rises because, after years of standstill, the EU is again moved to grow its membership. First on the list is Ukraine, with which accession negotiations began in June 2024. Although President Zelensky regards joining the EU as second best to membership of NATO, he will surely need to accept it as an integral part of any ceasefire agreement with Russia. Knowing that neither the US nor Germany will agree to realise the promise of NATO membership, Zelensky should now use his leverage to press for fast-track entry to the EU.
As admitting Ukraine to the EU is urgent, Brussels is obliged to upturn its usual accession procedures, which are lengthy, arduous and prone to blockage. Commission President von der Leyen is busy preparing for the enlargement. Her ‘pre-enlargement reviews’ of policies and institutions must include the option of immediate Ukraine entry, with the aim of signing the accession treaty before the end of 2025.
Ukraine could operate the Treaty on European Union immediately, especially the enhanced provisions on common security and defence (Article 42(6)). It should be permitted to adopt the rest of the acquis communautaire in stages, joining the common policies of the Treaty on the Functioning of the EU sector by sector as transitional provisions are met. An early chapter agreed would be the new industrial policy on arms procurement. Kyiv should send representatives into the EU institutions with a vote (but not a veto) on all applicable EU law pending the complete ratification of its accession treaty by all 27 member states.
The impact on the UK of such an expeditious and truncated accession for Ukraine might be dramatic. London has promised to help Kyiv. That must include support for EU membership. Perverse as it may be, Britain will be promoting the enlargement of the very Union it has just sought fit to leave.
Following Ukraine, Moldova and the Western Balkan states, and possibly Georgia, will be in a position to accelerate their own membership bids. The EU, while privileging Ukraine, is anxious to be even-handed in its treatment of its whole neighbourhood.
Iceland and Norway, interdependent with the EU, are also beginning to reassess their position as non-members. Their European Economic Area agreement, dating from 1991, is no longer adequate to cope with the scope and depth of the more integrated and democratic Union. Iceland is to hold a referendum by 2027 on reactivating EU membership talks. The EEA will be very vulnerable if Donald Trump’s aggressive nationalism leads to a US tariff war with the EU. Trump’s threats against Greenland accentuate the EU’s vulnerability in the High North.
The UK is in an invidious position. The economic case for rejoining the EU is not difficult to make, and the geopolitical factors that led his predecessors to turn to Europe apply also to Starmer. Claiming a seat at the EU top table surely makes sense. National sovereignty is a spurious concept unless used to advance national interests abroad, to militate against isolation and to redress the balance of power in Europe to Britain’s advantage. The UK, with Ukraine and Poland, should take the lead in rebuilding Europe’s defences.
Many Labour ministers and MPs are already worried about the government’s underwhelming European policy. Opinion polls suggest that a consistent majority now regrets Brexit. All the progressive minority parties in the Commons, with at least 92 seats, will support Starmer if he takes the plunge and rejoins Europe. So will the House of Lords along with the devolved parliaments in Northern Ireland, Scotland and Wales. A new bid for EU membership would roil the Conservative party just as Heath dished Labour at the time of the first accession.
Were Starmer to pursue this agenda, an early white paper could spell out the business case for single market and customs union membership and the potential for increased productivity. It could emphasise too the importance, in an uncertain world, of Europe’s collective security, shared culture and liberal democratic values. At the end of the accession process, once the terms and conditions are known, there would surely be another referendum. After ten years of Brexit, it would not be wrong for the nation to change its mind.
The EU institutions and its national governments are certain to be positive about a concerted attempt to reverse Brexit. The UK will be welcome not just for its net contribution to the EU budget but for what the British could bring in terms of law, trade, science, education and global political clout. Because of its legacy as a member state, and even the close encounter of the recent secession negotiations, the process of rejoining the UK to the Union need not take long. Reversing Brexit will not solve every problem, but it will put the country back on a promising trajectory, affirming that Britain is, after all, a modern European country. As is Ukraine.
