Could we just have a ‘closer relationship’ with the EU instead?

If rejoining is difficult, then couldn’t we settle for a ‘closer relationship’ with the EU? After all, that is basically government policy now, and wouldn’t it solve most of our problems?

We do not dismiss any move towards closer EU alignment, as each step makes rejoining easier. However, it is important to state that keeping Brexit and negotiating sector by sector is not a ‘soft option’.

Negotiating everything sector by sector is not a ‘soft option’ – it means many years of effort

Far from a settled ‘end state’, holding close to the EU without joining means constantly negotiating over every new set of rules and initiatives. It means many years of negotiating and renegotiating the details of sectoral deals. This is a lot of effort to go to compared to rejoining, or even to a known-quantity ‘package’ deal such as the European Economic Area (EEA). There is also a high degree of vagueness in practice about what a ‘closer relationship’ means.

The Swiss model

If the UK continues on the path it is already on, it is heading towards the Swiss model: not an EU member, but a complicated partial integration into the EU single market, made up mostly of sector-by-sector agreements. (There would be differences in the exact sectors covered, but the overall model is comparable.) The EU has more than 120 bilateral (two-party) agreements with Switzerland. This is the approach that Labour’s current policy appears to point towards.

However, in this model, Switzerland is a ‘rule-taker’, obliged to implement new EU rules. It also pays a contribution to the EU budget.

This is not an easy path: it is a path of constant negotiation, with no say in the EU institutions and no representation in the European Parliament. A look at the recent history of Swiss-EU relations will confirm this, with stop-start negotiations over the last few years including “18 months of exploratory talks”, with a new round of negotiations opened in March 2024.

Once a country anyway accepts the EU’s rules, there is little downside in rejoining and a lot of upside, as it removes the need for constant negotiations - and adds democratic representation within the EU’s structures.

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