An improvement on the Johnson model will be available only to a PM who can counter decades of Eurosceptic mythology, says Guardian columnist Rafael Behr
There are two reasons not to start that conversation this side of an election. First, the single market comes as a package with free movement of labour. Any hint of a return to open-door immigration is electoral halitosis coming from the mouth of aleader. Second, a commitment to align with European rules without a seat at the table where decisions are made looks like regulatory vassalage on terms that Eurosceptics used to complain about when Britain was an EU member.
There is a tendency in British debates about Europe to imagine symmetrical interest on the other side of the Channel. But the EU has moved on. Brexit is cited as a cautionary tale against Eurosceptic populism, not lamented as a loss to be recovered. Britain’s rupture from the single market was painful all round, but the wound is only septic on one side.
That doesn’t mean there is nothing that a Labour prime minister can offer to get better terms of trade. But the case has to be compelling, and built around the EU’s appraisal of its own interests. That takes the conversation into big global issues where Britain, as a large European economy can make a difference – joining up energy markets; collective action on climate change; defence and security cooperation; helping rebuild Ukraine.
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