{"id":643863,"date":"2026-06-17T17:08:09","date_gmt":"2026-06-17T17:08:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/643863\/"},"modified":"2026-06-17T17:08:09","modified_gmt":"2026-06-17T17:08:09","slug":"lib-dems-to-urge-labour-to-drop-torpor-and-timidity-on-eu-and-rejoin-single-market-european-union","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/643863\/","title":{"rendered":"Lib Dems to urge Labour to drop \u2018torpor and timidity\u2019 on EU and rejoin single market | European Union"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Lib Dems will urge Andy Burnham<\/a> to end Labour\u2019s \u201ctorpor and timidity\u201d towards the EU as they call for the UK to rejoin the single market, in a notable strengthening of their own position.<\/p>\n

Ahead of the 10th anniversary of the Brexit vote next week, Ed Davey<\/a> will challenge Burnham to scrap Labour\u2019s red lines on the customs union and single market if he becomes prime minister and immediately begin talks on a more ambitious deal with the EU.<\/p>\n

He will argue on Wednesday for closer economic ties with the EU, even though that would include free movement, as well as a new European security council to counter mounting threats from Russia and the unreliability of the US president, Donald Trump.<\/p>\n

It marks a significant step towards calling to rejoin the bloc. The Lib Dems took a more gradual approach at the last election, in contrast with 2019, when the words \u201cstop Brexit\u201d appeared in bold on the front of their manifesto.<\/p>\n

Keir Starmer confirmed on Tuesday that the second EU reset summit would take place on 22 July, despite fears it could be postponed to the autumn with talks over youth mobility in deadlock. In 2024, Labour<\/a> promised not to rejoin the EU, the single market or the customs union.<\/p>\n

But in a major speech, Davey will say: \u201cLabour\u2019s red lines are holding Britain back. They are hurting the British people and they are playing into the hands of Farage and Reform.<\/p>\n

Ed Davey will argue the Lib Dem plan will reverse years of economic stagnation. Photograph: Anadolu\/Getty Images<\/p>\n

\u201cSo my message to Andy Burnham, to Wes Streeting \u2013 to whoever the next prime minister may be \u2013 is this: drop those red lines. Drop them now, so we can move on from the torpor and timidity that marks out Labour\u2019s approach to Europe so far.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe can put an end to the endless talk of a \u2018reset\u2019, that so far seems to just mean saying \u2018no\u2019 more politely than the Conservatives did. And we can get on with properly fixing our relationship with Europe.\u201d<\/p>\n

Davey will argue that the Lib Dems\u2019 plan to join the single market as a member of the European free trade agreement \u2013 alongside Norway and Iceland \u2013 and form a new UK-EU customs union would fully remove trade barriers to Europe and reverse years of economic damage from Brexit.<\/p>\n

It would represent \u201cthe best hope our country has to stop the chaos and end the crisis \u2013 and the biggest step we can take back towards membership of the EU\u201d, he will say.<\/p>\n

\u201cPeople are fed up \u2026 They know the hard truth that most politicians won\u2019t admit: the Conservatives\u2019 Brexit experiment has failed. And it\u2019s failed all of us. \u00a390bn a year \u2013 that\u2019s how much it\u2019s costing us all.\u201d<\/p>\n

A return to the single market would require the UK to accept free movement, putting Davey on a collision course with the Tories and Reform UK over immigration.<\/p>\n

EU officials have said they are open to the UK joining the European Economic Area \u2013 the European single market \u2013 but have ruled out a British proposal for common rules on goods<\/a> without free movement of people.<\/p>\n

Charles Michel, a former European Council president, told the Guardian that the EU single market was \u201cnot for sale\u201d when asked about the British proposal of a single market for goods. \u201cIf the dream in the UK is to build closer ties, but if the consequence is less integrity in the single market, that will not work, because I feel that the single market is not for sale.\u201d<\/p>\n

He said the UK\u2019s wish \u201cto take the advantages of Brexit \u2026 without having any constraints\u201d was not new and had been demonstrated throughout the Brexit negotiations.<\/p>\n

Michel, who was Belgium\u2019s prime minister at the time of the 2016 referendum, said he expected the EU would react with \u201ca positive spirit\u201d if the UK ever decided to rejoin. He emphasised this was a question for UK politics \u201cif and when there is the readiness for a serious domestic debate\u201d.<\/p>\n

Lib Dem party sources argued that Brexit had led to the \u201cBoris wave\u201d and small boats crisis, suggesting the UK could negotiate a \u201cvery tight\u201d returns agreement under the Dublin framework, while sectors including hospitality, agriculture and social care would benefit from more EU workers.<\/p>\n

The party is also calling for much deeper defence cooperation with the EU to help guarantee UK security, including the establishment of a European security council and a new rearmament drive to improve the continent\u2019s ability to deliver Nato\u2019s operational requirements.<\/p>\n

The party, which has 72 MPs, believes the UK could use its defence prowess as a bargaining chip with Brussels to negotiate a better deal, with some EU members already hoping to go further on military cooperation, alongside \u2013 rather than instead of \u2013 their Nato commitments.<\/p>\n

A Labour source said: \u201cThe kind of things the Lib Dems would say, wedded to the past and old routine fringe issues. Pitching a rejoin policy that only serves to recreate the most divisive debate this country has seen is careless and desperate. The latest in a long queue of Ed Davey stunts that people have grown numb to.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Lib Dems will urge Andy Burnham to end Labour\u2019s \u201ctorpor and timidity\u201d towards the EU as they…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":643864,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[59,57,58,50,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-643863","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\/643863","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=643863"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/643863\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/643864"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=643863"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=643863"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=643863"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}