{"id":959824,"date":"2026-05-14T18:18:21","date_gmt":"2026-05-14T18:18:21","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/959824\/"},"modified":"2026-05-14T18:18:21","modified_gmt":"2026-05-14T18:18:21","slug":"is-wes-streeting-the-man-to-take-britain-back-into-europe","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/959824\/","title":{"rendered":"Is Wes Streeting the man to take Britain back into Europe?"},"content":{"rendered":"

The one time\u00a0I interviewed Wes Streeting at length<\/a>, the striking thing was how firm this formerly ardent Remainer was in his view that Britain\u2019s departure from the EU was a one-way street.<\/p>\n

Actually, that\u2019s not true \u2013 the most striking thing was an anecdote about his grandfather\u2019s friend\u2019s party trick involving five half-pint glasses and his, ahem, appendage. I\u2019ll spare you the details, but it\u2019s in his book,\u00a0One Boy, Two Bills and a Fry Up. \u201cI tell you what \u2013 the one thing that I didn\u2019t think about when I put those words down on to the page was that I\u2019d had to read them out loud myself on my audiobook,\u201d he said when I asked about it.<\/p>\n

But the headline when the interview ran in what was then\u00a0The New European\u00a0in July 2023 was \u201cI can\u2019t see a credible route back into the EU in the foreseeable future\u201d, an eye-catching quote from what I still think was an absolutely fascinating interview.<\/p>\n

Eye-catching because Streeting was a passionate Remainer who, following the referendum, kept it at the heart of his politics even when that was deeply uncomfortable for his own colleagues. In January 2018, when Jeremy Corbyn\u2019s party was still pursuing something called, absurdly, a \u2018Jobs-First Brexit\u2019 (remember that?), Streeting was giving a speech to the Fabian Society\u2019s annual conference in which he lamented how \u201cwe find ourselves in the terrible position where it is the Labour Party that currently stands as the single biggest barrier to the UK\u2019s membership of the single market and customs union\u201d.<\/p>\n

Yet here we were, five years later in his Portcullis House office, with him saying equally uncomfortable words to the readers of the country\u2019s most fervently pro-EU publication.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe have got to accept where we are today, and I cannot see a credible route back into the European Union any time in the foreseeable future,\u201d he said. \u201cPeople need to get real about what\u2019s possible.<\/p>\n

\u201cIn the unlikely event that this country wanted to go through years and years of the same argument again about whether to rejoin, I\u2019m not sure the European Union would have us back. And even with things like the single market and the customs union, we can\u2019t become the mirror image of the Leave campaign. The Leave campaign basically said that Brexit would be really simple and would make everything better. And Brexit has been far from simple, and it has not made things better.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think Remainers, or some Remainers, are now at the risk of making the same mistake, of pretending there is an easy answer where we could rejoin the European Union and everything would automatically become better. Or even the single market and customs union, where, you know, being a rule-taker without a seat at the table is not without risk.<\/p>\n

\u201cOf course I wish things had been different, but the moral of the story, folks, is voting counts and losing hurts.\u201d<\/p>\n

I revisit these words today not to criticise Streeting, nor embarrass him, but because he might well be our next prime minister and it\u2019s interesting. And also because it shows that, rather than a flip-flopper, he\u2019s a realist.<\/p>\n

In 2023, he may have been right that there wasn\u2019t a credible route back into the European Union any time in the foreseeable future. Polls on the issue teetered rather than showing a significant and persistent majority in favour of rejoining, as they do now. That nice Joe Biden was in the White House, Donald Trump was assumed finished, enveloped, as he was, in innumerable court cases, and the world order, while not exactly healthy, was not the steaming wreck it is today.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s fair to say that, like John Maynard Keynes, when the facts change, Streeting changes his mind. Last year he appeared to hint at backing a customs union with the EU, telling the\u00a0Observer\u00a0a \u201cdeeper trading relationship\u201d with Europe would be a means of boosting the UK\u2019s economic growth \u2013 something which saw him accused of \u201csetting out his stall\u201d for a leadership bid by a \u201cgovernment source\u201d.<\/p>\n

Under a Streeting premiership, it is highly likely the government would take on a far more pro-EU approach, seeking the closest possible relationship with the single market. Streeting is not unique in wanting that \u2013 Andy Burnham has said he hopes Britain will rejoin the EU in his lifetime and Ed Miliband would back closer ties (Angela Rayner would also likely pursue greater integration although, like Corbyn during the referendum itself, it may be a \u201cseven out of 10\u201d priority).<\/p>\n

Would Streeting go as far and step outside the \u201cred lines\u201d of the Labour manifesto \u2013 single market, customs union, freedom of movement \u2013 once ensconced in Downing Street? Would he feel bound by it?<\/p>\n

None of this can we know for sure, but we may find out more over the coming days and weeks. Streeting may be the prime minister who guides the UK back towards its geographic home of Europe. He might equally likely be the new James Purnell, the minister who quit Gordon Brown\u2019s government, found nobody following him and was left feeling as embarrassed as Streeting\u2019s grandfather\u2019s friend upon waking up and finding out that the previous night he\u2019d done\u00a0that\u00a0trick again.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The one time\u00a0I interviewed Wes Streeting at length, the striking thing was how firm this formerly ardent Remainer…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":959825,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5174],"tags":[802,2000,299,5187,528,3595],"class_list":{"0":"post-959824","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-eu","8":"tag-brexit","9":"tag-eu","10":"tag-europe","11":"tag-european","12":"tag-labour-party","13":"tag-wes-streeting"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/116574309961437041","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/959824","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=959824"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/959824\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/959825"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=959824"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=959824"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=959824"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}