Rejoining the EU will likely mean the UK paying Brussels more than ever before, accepting migrants from Europe and committing to join the euro.
A bid to reverse Brexit could also end up being blocked by a referendum in France, The i Paper has been told.
It comes as the shadow contest to be the next prime minister has put rejoining the EU firmly back on the agenda.
Wes Streeting said the UK should “one day” return to the EU and that Labour should put the prospect of doing so in its next election manifesto. Andy Burnham, another frontrunner in any future race to succeed Sir Keir Starmer, said there was a “long-term case” for rejoining but has stressed it would not be an immediate focus if he were to govern.
This week, the European Parliament’s President Roberta Metsola said the EU’s “door was open” to Britain. However, the cost to the UK of reversing Brexit is likely to be high, according to EU sources and experts.
No more special treatment
The privileges once enjoyed by the UK as an EU member, such as Margaret Thatcher’s painfully negotiated rebate on payments to Brussels, are highly unlikely to be granted in a rejoin scenario.
The UK’s net contribution to the EU budget was £12.6bn in 2020, the year it left the bloc but continued to pay into Brussels’ coffers as if it were a member under the terms of the Brexit withdrawal deal. This included Britain getting back £5.2bn as part of the rebate and £4.5bn in Government income or public sector receipts, according to the Commons Library.
With the EU’s budget set to nearly double to 2 trillion euro from 2027, the UK would face paying many billions more if it were to rejoin and operate without the rebate, which was negotiated by Thatcher in 1984 to reduce how much Britain paid into the bloc.
An EU source said it was wrong to see payments to Brussels as a cost but instead as a contribution to the common pot and they stressed that member states would always try to negotiate a settlement that is more favourable to them.
However the source cautioned: “I cannot see different treatment for the UK.
“The differentiated treatment [the rebate] was always the result of a member bargaining when a specific policy was being introduced.
“It was the ultimate concession by the other members.
“I cannot see a prospective member getting such exemptions.”
Anand Menon, director of the UK In A Changing Europe think tank, said Thatcher managed to negotiate the rebate by arguing that because so much of the EU’s money was spent on agriculture, the UK, which had a much smaller sector, saw little of it return. The Conservative former PM famously declared: “I want my money back.”
“We won’t get that now,” Menon said. “The budget rebate would be gone.”
The end of the British pound?
The UK, like any other prospective member, would have to commit to joining the euro in the accession process to becoming a member.
All members must make a legal commitment to joining but Britain could follow Poland and Sweden in effectively breaking the EU’s rules by never practically adopting the single currency, invoking political and economic reasons for doing so.
Such a demand would risk becoming toxic in the UK, which went through a heated debate on the euro in the late 90s and early 00s before deciding not to join under Sir Tony Blair, who had been a supporter of the single currency, and securing an opt out from Brussels.
The EU source suggested a future Labour prime minister could try and get around this by invoking caveats such as stressing the UK would join “in the long term” or telling the EU that “considering the size of our economy we need time to adapt”.
Menon said the EU was unlikely to make concessions in this area, partly because it may help stop Brexit happening all over again.
“We would have to commit to adopting the euro and there is a very big reason for the EU not to be as kind to us as they are with Poland and Sweden, which is if we adopt the euro it becomes a lot harder to leave again,” he said.
“If it was hard to leave last time, leaving when you’ve got the currency would be an absolute pig.”
UK may have to accept asylum seekers from Europe
The EU has also moved on significantly since the UK left and in so doing removed one of the voices around the table that was most sceptical of more integration.
Menon explained that since Brexit, Brussels has been able to enact policies that may have been more difficult had the UK been a member, including common borrowing for Covid, giving the European Commission a role in defence and adopting more protectionist stances such as on mooted ‘Made In Europe’ policies.
“None of those things would have happened quite as easily if the UK had been around the table,” he said.
“It’s a more foreign organisation now than it was then.”
The UK is likely to also miss out on other privileges, beyond the rebate, such as an opt-out from the EU’s asylum policy
This means it could be forced to take in quotas of asylum seekers from Europe under the EU’s new migration pact, which makes member states take in migrants from under-pressure nations such as Italy and Greece or pay a 20,000 euro (£17,286) penalty per person they refuse.
Trojan horse
Each of the 27 EU member states must approve the UK rejoining at a national level.
One particular snag may come in France, which has a legal requirement of a three-fifths supermajority in its parliament or a referendum of its voters to approve new member states.
“It is a legal stipulation that in the event of enlargement you either need a 60 per cent majority in both houses or have a referendum,” Menon said.
While it may be unlikely for France to block a country the size of the UK joining, it does have form in this area – Charles de Gaulle in 1963 vetoed the British application to join the EU precursor European Community, believing it would be a Trojan horse for American interests in Europe.
Eurosceptics revitalised
Some in Europe fear that reopening the debate about EU membership would simply reignite the Brexit cause at a time when most British voters have moved on from the heated and divisive debate and favour closer ties with Brussels, while outside the bloc.
A second EU source questioned whether Sir Keir Starmer’s so-called “reset” would have a major impact on the average person in the UK and wondered whether a different leader might be able to sell the trade-offs to go further.
But they warned: “The most important question is whether such a discussion now can avert anti-EU forces in the UK from gaining more attraction.”
The EU said it would not comment on Britain rejoining the bloc given there had been no such request.
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