{"id":589560,"date":"2026-05-17T21:45:07","date_gmt":"2026-05-17T21:45:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/589560\/"},"modified":"2026-05-17T21:45:07","modified_gmt":"2026-05-17T21:45:07","slug":"where-does-uk-eu-relationship-stand-and-how-might-bid-to-rejoin-bloc-be-received-brexit","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/589560\/","title":{"rendered":"Where does UK-EU relationship stand and how might bid to rejoin bloc be received? | Brexit"},"content":{"rendered":"

Wes Streeting, who resigned as Britain\u2019s health secretary last week and has said he will run in any contest to replace Keir Starmer as the Labour leader and prime minister, has described Brexit as a \u201ccatastrophic mistake\u201d and said the UK should rejoin the EU<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Andy Burnham, the Labour mayor of Greater Manchester, who will fight an upcoming byelection on a promise to challenge Starmer, has also said he saw a \u201clong-term case\u201d for rejoining \u2013 although he would not be advocating it immediately.<\/p>\n

The comments by two of the key figures manoeuvring to be Britain\u2019s next prime minister have thrust the UK-EU relationship back into the centre of political debate. Here\u2019s a look at where that relationship stands \u2013 and how a bid to rejoin could be received.<\/p>\n

What is the state of the UK\u2019s relationship with the EU?<\/p>\n

Soon after he was elected in 2024, Starmer promised a \u201creset\u201d<\/a> of the UK\u2019s ties with the rest of Europe, hoping to draw a line under years of fractious relations with the 27-member bloc and secure a range of new economic and other deals with Britain\u2019s largest trading partner.<\/p>\n

A year later, the prime minister said a wide-ranging agreement signed at a feelgood UK-EU summit in London<\/a> \u201cgives us unprecedented access to the EU market, the best of any country\u201d, and would deliver \u201ccheaper food and energy\u201d for British people.<\/p>\n

After Labour\u2019s local election drubbing this month, Starmer again promised<\/a> his government would be \u201cdefined by rebuilding our relationship with Europe, by putting Britain at the heart of Europe\u201d. But concrete progress so far has been at best limited.<\/p>\n

The UK has rejoined the EU\u2019s Horizon science programme<\/a> \u2013 although that was agreed under the previous government \u2013 and will rejoin the Erasmus+ programme<\/a> for educational and training exchanges from 2027, at least for a year.<\/p>\n

But in other areas, talks are tricky. Negotiations over a \u201cyouth mobility scheme\u201d<\/a> to allow young Britons to live and work in EU countries and young EU citizens to live and work in the UK for a period are bogged down over the issue of tuition fees for EU students<\/a>.<\/p>\n

UK integration into Europe\u2019s electricity market has been held up by London\u2019s refusal to pay into EU \u201ccohesion funds\u201d in exchange, while a deal to allow the UK to join the SAFE defence procurement fund also fell through<\/a> over the financial contribution demanded by Brussels.<\/p>\n

London has said that by the next UK-EU summit this summer, it hoped to have sealed deals on food and agricultural products<\/a>, carbon emissions trading, and the youth mobility (or, as the UK calls it, \u201cyouth experience\u201d) scheme. But none of this is gamechanging.<\/p>\n

What is standing in the way of closer ties? <\/p>\n

The main obstacles to any significant improvement in UK-EU ties lie in the \u201cred lines\u201d that Starmer\u2019s Labour government laid down before it was elected: no return to the customs union, no return to the single market, and no return to freedom of movement.<\/p>\n

While some member states complain that the European Commission could be more creative and flexible in negotiating bespoke deals with Britain, the bloc\u2019s overriding view is that the closer the UK wants to get to the EU, the more it must align with EU rules and regulations.<\/p>\n

Any government moves in that direction \u2013 such as planned new legislation<\/a> allowing the UK to dynamically align with EU single market rules without a normal parliamentary vote \u2013 has been savaged by Reform UK and the Conservatives as \u201cundoing Brexit by the back door\u201d.<\/p>\n

Most economists agree the kind of sectorial mini-deals the UK has so far sought from the EU will not have much of an impact on the UK economy and are certainly unlikely to recover the estimated 6%-8% hit to economic output<\/a> caused by Brexit by the first quarter of 2025.<\/p>\n

In his speech after the local elections, Starmer said: \u201cIncremental change won\u2019t cut it \u2026 We need a bigger response than we anticipated in 2024 because these are not ordinary times.\u201d But in terms of UK-EU ties, no \u201cbigger response\u201d is possible unless those red lines are eased.<\/p>\n

Any more far-reaching agreement that may make a significant economic difference \u2013 on joining the single market, for example \u2013 would involve allowing EU citizens the freedom to work and live in the UK, which the government has so far refused to contemplate.<\/p>\n

How would the EU welcome a bigger reset \u2013 or even a request to rejoin? <\/p>\n

The world of 2026 is not the same as that of 2016, when the UK voted to leave the EU. Russia is waging war on Ukraine. The UK-US \u201cspecial relationship\u201d has been severely shaken. The rules-based international order is in danger, maybe in terminal decline.<\/p>\n

Analysts say the EU and UK would both benefit significantly from a fundamental rethink of their relationship that would enhance their security and prosperity.<\/p>\n

A YouGov poll last month<\/a> suggested 63% of Britons want a closer relationship with the EU, while 55% want to rejoin \u2013 something the EU has always said it would welcome<\/a>. Support for the UK\u2019s return is at or above 50% in Germany, France, Spain, Italy and elsewhere.<\/p>\n

But Europeans would also overwhelmingly expect the UK to get the same terms as any new member. As Poland\u2019s foreign minister, Rados\u0142aw Sikorski, put it<\/a>, Britain would not get the same opt-outs it had before, or its rebate. The EU may also insist on Britain joining the euro.<\/p>\n

Sikorski also said the UK had yet to \u201cinternalise the fundamental European deal\u201d: that closer ties, in the form of customs union, single market or full membership, came at the price of \u201cpooling some aspects of sovereignty\u201d and \u201chonouring rules you didn\u2019t make yourself\u201d.<\/p>\n

European leaders would be concerned about a future Reform UK government undoing any deal, and could demand clauses imposing a penalty if that was attempted. But today\u2019s geostrategic realities mean any UK bid to rejoin would, at the very least, be seriously entertained.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Wes Streeting, who resigned as Britain\u2019s health secretary last week and has said he will run in any…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":589561,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[59,57,58,50,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-589560","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-united-kingdom","tag-gb","tag-great-britain","tag-greatbritain","tag-news","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/589560","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=589560"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/589560\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/589561"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=589560"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=589560"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=589560"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}