Brexit Britain has one viable option left: Europe

Almost ten years since the United Kingdom voted to leave the European Union, the Brexiteers’ pilgrimage to ‘sunlit uplands’ has instead become a national Via Dolorosa – a painful procession of humbling lessons about the limits of sovereignty in a globalized world.¹ Slowly but surely, however, there are glimmers of hope that the UK may be preparing to turn the page of this costly national psychodrama – a ‘reset’ in its EU relations triggered by economic stagnation and accelerated by geopolitical crisis. But can the next chapter of the UK’s European story be written quickly enough?

A new majority for Europe

The latest polling data from YouGov now estimates that the 1.3 million majority that favoured withdrawal in 2016, by dint of both buyer’s remorse and changing demography, has been converted into a pro-EU majority of over 8 million voters – many more than any electoral landslide. Until recently, invoking the grave harm wreaked by Brexit was politically taboo, with Labour fearful of alienating its fragile support base among the Leave-voting working class. But the scale of Britain’s error has now become impossible to conceal: recent macroeconomic analysis suggests Brexit’s toll on the economy has been even worse than feared in the medium term, wiping out 6 to 8 per cent of UK GDP and provoking a double-digit decline in foreign investment which shows no sign of improvement.

The harsh realities of Brexit are emboldening some within the British government to propose significantly closer relations with the EU. In December, Health Secretary Wes Streeting – a popular tip to succeed Sir Keir Starmer – mooted rejoining the customs union, echoing similar calls from Deputy PM David Lammy. In the same month, London and Brussels agreed the terms of a British return to the flagship Erasmus+ programme. This tonal shift was already in motion before the latest spasms over Greenland, but the imperialist drumbeat now emanating from the White House makes this UK–EU rapprochement a strategic necessity as well as an economic imperative.

Adrift in the Atlantic

Beyond its economic consequences, it has become increasingly apparent that the Brexit divorce has also isolated the UK from emergent European security and military–industrial frameworks at the worst possible moment. UK defence firms find themselves all but excluded from the EU’s €150bn SAFE programme of military investments after talks collapsed in November, and British participation in a key military mobility project was blocked by Spain due to an ongoing dispute over border arrangements in Gibraltar – a fragmentation which neither side can afford when faced with hostile powers on both flanks. Yet regardless of what 2026 will herald for NATO and the transatlantic security order, Brexit has clearly created unnecessary strategic and commercial friction between key allies, which is ever harder to justify.

For more than 80 years the British geopolitical psyche rested on the cherished ‘Special Relationship’ with America. Trump’s fair-weather interest in Ukraine, and his threats against Greenland in particular, have revealed the limits of British acquiescence to Washington’s caprices. Most Britons viewed the Arctic crisis with similar horror to other European allies.² Yet in London, unlike in Paris or Berlin, the dismay is compounded by a sudden awareness of being adrift between turncoat America and self-imposed exile from the Continent. There is a growing sense of an epochal choice in the making: senior Labour MP Stella Creasy declared, ‘It’s make-your-mind-up time. If we can’t rely on America and we don’t want to cosy up to China, the answer is to get serious about our strategic future with Europe.’

Now or never

Any political calculations around a UK–EU ‘reset’ must factor in Nigel Farage and his Reform Party, which continues to lead opinion polling. Farage’s fortunes have vacillated recently; his usually slick PR operation has been knocked by accusations of historical anti-Semitic behaviour and his awkward affiliation with Trump. Yet like his friend in the White House, Farage has repeatedly emerged unscathed from scandal and from the dire consequences of an EU withdrawal for which he agitated for decades. There is still a very real chance he will become prime minister in 2029 – at which point, the window of opportunity for any rapprochement will slam shut. The European Commission is lucid about the risks, already insisting on a ‘Farage Clause’ in trade negotiations with London. The British government must be equally clear-sighted about the electoral deadline and pursue ambitious and watertight strategic alignment with Europe as a matter of urgency.

The EU is not the sole vehicle for closer UK–European ties – the British have continued to demonstrate leadership via intergovernmental frameworks like the European Political Community and the ‘Coalition of the Willing’. In that respect ‘Breturn’ is not a prerequisite for tangible strategic cooperation, as also evidenced by British boots on the ground in Greenland. Yet in a world order now defined by great powers and regional blocs, the logic of EU membership appears ever harder to resist: Iceland is set to hold a referendum on accession talks in 2027, and the mood music is also shifting in Norway – a country, like the UK, ‘increasingly on the outside of everything we want to be on the inside of’.

The next UK–EU summit is pencilled in for this spring. The gathering represents an opportune moment for the reset. The British government has already recognized the economic folly of Brexit and chosen sides geopolitically by pledging ‘non-negotiable’ support for Denmark and Greenland. On both counts, it has the strong support of the British public. Yet time is of the essence: if the Labour leadership are indeed convinced of the need for some kind of reintegration with the EU, they should take concrete action while it remains politically possible.

Paul-Henri Spaak once quipped that ‘there are two types of countries in Europe – small ones, and those which do not yet know they are small’. The UK chose to come to terms with its geopolitical stature the hard way. Now it should re-embrace its European destiny – as a strategic necessity and the only viable choice in turbulent times.