Growth is now projected at a limp 1% for 2025, and there are no serious ideas for resuming the boom that Britain enjoyed when it was still in the union, which I remember very well from the period when London brimmed with Bentleys and felt like the capital of the world. Trade with the EU — still its largest market — is more expensive and more complex. Investment has suffered. Productivity remains weak. Only about one tenth think Brexit was good for the economy and about 60% now say they would have voted to remain. And yet, though a clear majority says leaving the EU was a mistake, Brits recoil at reopening the Brexit wars, which were terrible karma and also a bit of a bore. That contradiction — regret without redress — has paralyzed British politics.
The paralysis has stemmed from the fact that Brexit support had cut across party lines, so both Labour and the Conservatives have been terrified of the issue. Labour in particular feared losing rural and working-class voters – which proved easy prey for the right in the culture wars, similar to what happened to the Democrats in the United States.
But a massive and surprising political realignment has simplified the calculus.
Reform UK – the rebranded Brexit Party – has emerged as the front-runner in the past year, cannibalizing support across the spectrum. Those voters are probably not coming back to Labour. Culture and identity – exactly as in the United States – has trumped economic logic.
Prime Minister Keir Starmer’s Labour government has responded cautiously, which is the mode preferred by its leader: Offering modest trade tweaks and trying in vain to project competence while raising taxes and enduring an absurd array of petty scandals. To no one’s surprise, the party’s support has cratered.
As things stand, the next election risks chaos. Britain’s first-past-the-post electoral system was built for two dominant parties and normally magnifies the winner’s majority. Indeed, in 2024 Labour secured 63 percent of parliamentary seats with just 34 percent of the vote largely because the opposition splintered. Conservatives languished in the mid-20s, while Reform drew double-digit support but converted only a handful of seats, dramatically illustrating how the system punishes fragmentation.
And fragmentation has deepened. Alongside Reform’s rise, the once-meaningless Greens have strengthened, and a new Labour splinter led by former party leader Jeremy Corbyn has emerged as well. Britain now has six national parties with meaningful support — with the addition of the traditional third party, the Liberal Democrats — none close to a majority. In such a landscape, first-past-the-post stops delivering decisiveness and starts delivering instability.
Labour could rule until 2029, but it knows its leader is deeply unpopular, and dragging things out would be seen as unsporting. Talk of leadership challenges — from figures such as Andy Burnham or Wes Streeting — grows. Streeting, the Health Secretary, over th weekend called to Starmer to do more to undo Brexit and praised the EU’s economic value. Almost any successor would be less cautious than Starmer, a former prosecutor, and would face pressure to shake things up.
Such a leader might be tempted to give remaining Labour voters what they clearly want: a referendum on rejoining the EU, framed as the only credible path back to growth.
A bold move like that could also force the Lib Dem into a joint electoral pact. The Lib Dems have fiercely guarded their independence, but insiders believe that for something this dramatic — especially if paired with generous terms — they might suspend it temporarily.
A joint Labour–Lib Dem slate offering a policy most Britons support could transform the political landscape, overtaking Reform and boxing in the Conservatives. The party that blundered into Brexit could split again — some aligning formally with Reform, others drifting toward a Labour Party that has aligned itself with the country’s majority view.
That could mean pursuing full membership, or conceivably something close: a customs union or single-market alignment. The distinction matters less than the signal it sends — that Britain recognizes its mistake is prepared to correct course.
What would Europe do?
A Labour–Lib Dem push to rejoin would test Brussels’ patience. Skepticism would be intense. Britain would face the full accession process, accept all rules accumulated since 2016, and demonstrate political reliability after years of turmoil. Hardline states — from France to Poland — would resist any suggestion that leaving and returning should be easy. Negotiations might be exacting.
Then again, they may not. The EU badly needs a win and the symbolic power of Britain’s return would be immense. It would restore the EU’s largest English-speaking member and major financial hub, validate the Union’s resilience after Brexit, and strengthen its global standing — particularly at a time when Donald Trump’s America has proven an unreliable partner. For all the obstacles, Europe is stronger with Britain in it, and the validation such a return would bring would be hard to resist.
Indeed, the EU will have some complex decisions to make about accessions in general, not least of which is the need – if there is a shred of strategic acumen in Brussels – to fast-track Ukraine as part of an endgame in that country’s war with Russia.
Having followed British politics for decades — and having lived in London for most of the 2000s — I sense shock therapy coming. London remains glorious but there is a deep and dark malaise. The shock could take the form of a far-right government under the unapologetic Brexiteer and Putin sympathizer Nigel Farage – and good luck to the Brits if that’s the way they go. But as for Labour, the path to resurrection runs through an electrifying commitment to reengage with the European Union.
I hope the cookie crumbles thusly. There is maturity in admitting one’s mistakes, and Britain’s identity is secure even within the EU. Grin it and bear it, Brits! Anything else would be a rum kettle of fish, and simply not cricket.
