𝓤𝓷𝓲𝓽𝓮𝓭 𝓝𝓮𝔀𝓼

Labour ministers have been slowly but surely turning up the thermostat on the UK’s relations with the European Union. In February Keir Starmer declared that “we are not the Britain of the Brexit years any more”. Meanwhile, in a lecture setting out her plans to grow the economy, Rachel Reeves claimed: “There is also a strategic imperative for deeper integration between the UK and EU – in our shared need for greater economic resilience.” She added: “So my choice, the choice of this government, is not to turn back the clock but to look towards a new and stable, future relationship.”

One of the features of that new relationship would be that the UK would align much more with EU regulations – with doing our own thing “the exception, not the norm”. That marks a big shift from the position under Boris Johnson, who saw the big prize of Brexit as the ability to regulate differently and to do our own trade deals (something Reeves dismissed as worth far less than closer relations with our biggest trading partner, the EU).

Now the Mayor of London, Sadiq Khan, has gone even further, suggesting that in this parliament the UK should join a customs union with the EU and rejoin the Single Market and that Labour should fight the next election on a pledge to rejoin.

The mayor’s position is that a re-elected Labour government should take the UK back into the EU, without another referendum. But could a government do that? The short answer is that it would be perfectly constitutionally proper. It’s up to Parliament to make these choices under our system of parliamentary sovereignty.

Back in the 1970s the UK joined the then European Economic Community after Parliament voted in favour – with no referendum. The referendum in 1975 was held after we had already been “in” for two and a half years.

But if constitutionally proper, would it be politically wrong? That would be for the government of the day to judge. Many would argue that the only way to reverse a decision to leave that was made in a referendum would be through another “people’s vote” and that having that endorsement would be essential to ensuring the decision to rejoin would be protected against the buffeting of individual government fortunes.

It’s possible too that the EU would be keen to see that assurance that a returning UK would not be heading for the exit door again in a few years time. But if rejoining the EU had been the central issue in the election campaign, and parties supporting to rejoining had the majority of seats, even better had commanded well over half the popular vote, a government might argue that the issue had been settled, and there was no point in having another divisive referendum simply to confirm what the voters had decided.

That would also open the way potentially to a future government taking the UK back out of the EU without a referendum. Indeed, given the divided state of our politics the UK could become a yo-yo member state.

At the moment, however, the pronouncements of Sadiq Khan remain a long way from the policy of Keir Starmer’s government. It is still trying to make headway in the tricky reset negotiations launched at the May summit last year.

It hopes to land deals – on agrifood energy and youth mobility – by the next summit which takes place in the summer. It is not that clear yet what Rachel Reeves’s new approach will mean in practice – whether it is about the UK choosing to align off its own bat (our choice, but fewer economic benefits) or whether she will be back with a new list for further negotiations with the EU (their choice, but potentially bigger economic benefits).

But Reeves made clear that Labour is still ruling out membership of the single market and customs union and won’t concede on freedom of movement.

And, as MPs are asked to approve legislation to allow the government to follow EU rules which no one in the UK ever voted for, the debate about whether we would be better off back in, with a seat at the table, will get louder.

Jill Rutter is a Senior Fellow at the Institute for Government and a former civil servant