‘You’ve got to be joking’: Mandelson dismisses
prospect of UK rejoining EU
Labour peer says there is little desire among voters
for a referendum and in Brussels for renegotiations
Richard
Partington Economics correspondent
Wed 27 Mar
2024 14.38 GMT
Peter
Mandelson has dismissed the prospect of an incoming Labour government taking
Britain back into the EU, saying “you’ve got to be joking” that Brussels would
want to renegotiate the UK’s membership.
The Labour
peer, a former EU trade commissioner and close adviser to Keir Starmer, said
rejoining the 27-country bloc would require a referendum that UK voters had
little desire for, after the Conservatives’ botched handling of Brexit.
“I cannot
see the British people running towards [a referendum] for love nor money after
what we went through during the last one. I really do not think that people are
going to run towards a repeat of that experience,” he told a British Chambers
of Commerce (BCC) event at Heathrow airport on Wednesday.
Lord
Mandelson, speaking at the launch of the lobby group’s report on building
“Global Britain” after the general election, added that a Starmer government
would build closer ties with the EU without rejoining.
The EU
wanted a more “stable, constructive relationship” with the UK, Mandelson
continued, but there was no desire in Brussels for wholesale negotiation of the
country’s return.
“Reopen a
negotiation? You’ve got to be joking,” he said. “They [the EU] have got other
priorities. They have other fish to fry now. And they’re not going to go
through the back-and-forth, up-and-down, seesaw motion; or another protracted,
probably hard fought over, and indecisive negotiation with Britain. So that’s
simply answered.”
His
comments come after the BCC called for politicians to “step out of Brexit’s
long shadow” and prioritise trade, including through closer ties with the UK’s
single largest trading partner.
Martha Lane
Fox, the tech entrepreneur and president of the BCC, said there was often a
reluctance among politicians to either recognise problems or suggest solutions
because of how they may be viewed either side of the Brexit divide.
“This must
stop. Our politicians must be bolder in their decision making. They must set
out a strategy on how we manage EU regulation and, where it makes sense, to
diverge so that British business can benefit,” she said.
Mandelson
said Brexit had triggered a “rollercoaster ride of instability, a
merry-go-round of changing ministers” that had left the British economy
“travelling along with one arm behind our backs”.
Speaking to
business leaders in the headquarters of the company responsible for operating
Heathrow, overlooking the airport’s northern runway, the former business
secretary under Tony Blair said Labour would not follow the Conservatives’
post-Brexit strategy of chasing free trade deals around the world.
However, he
said there was a danger that Britain could become “stranded” between a possible
Donald Trump administration in the US and weaker post-Brexit relationship with
Brussels.
“There is a
danger that we become stranded, or that we become collateral damage in what
could become quite an escalating tension,” he said.
Trump, who
launched a series of increasingly bitter trade battles with the US’s
traditional allies and adversaries alike during his time in the White House,
has said that if he is elected in November then he will impose 10% tariffs on
all goods imported into the US.
Mandelson
said the measure could push the UK to “join with others to maximise the
influence that we exercise” including in the EU and other G7 nations, while
also suggesting that action was required to strengthen the World Trade
Organization.
“What a
calamity [a trade war] would be, both for the US and Europe, and, I have to
say, for the rest of the world,” he said.
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