No ‘tailor-made’ deal for UK if it wants to rejoin bloc, say former EU Brexit officials

Britain would not be able to rejoin the EU on the special terms it enjoyed in the past, veterans of the Brexit negotiations have said.

According to former officials from around Europe, the UK should not expect to achieve as beneficial a deal as it once had if it decided to begin negotiations on re-entry.

The warnings came as senior Labour politicians jostling for the leadership of their party and country talk openly about wanting to return to the union at some point in the future.

Georg Riekeles, a former adviser on the EU’s Brexit taskforce, said he expected member states would take “a very warm, welcoming” stance but also a “hard-headed” one to a British membership application.

“There is a strategic need for the EU and the UK to work together, but I don’t think there would be an appetite for opening up new decades of British exceptionalism,” he said. “The price of re-entry would be membership on normal terms.”

During its 47 years of EU membership, the UK achieved an unprecedented special status: opt-outs from core policies, such as the single currency and the Schengen passport-free zone, as well as a rebate on EU budget payments, while carving out an agenda-setting role.

Sandro Gozi, Italy’s Europe minister from 2014-18, said “certainly we will start” with those standard terms, when asked about the euro and Schengen zone membership in any re-entry negotiations. “It is clear that the tailor-made suit is gone, and it is clear that the negotiation of the UK should tackle all the issues which are foreseen for any candidate.”

Gozi, now an MEP and chair of the European parliament’s delegation to the EU-UK parliamentary partnership assembly, predicted EU member states would welcome a British application to rejoin despite the uncertainty of a possible Nigel Farage premiership.

Wes Streeting argued over the weekend that the UK should rejoin the EU in the future. Even though the former health secretary’s allies say this could not happen without an election or referendum to gain permission from British voters, his comments reignited long-dormant rifts over Europe at the top of the ruling Labour party.

Andy Burnham, the Greater Manchester mayor, who is seeking a return to Westminster to challenge the prime minister, has previously said he wants Britain to rejoin the bloc within his lifetime. However, on Monday he clarified that he would not try to make that happen if he became prime minister in the short term.

“[Brexit] has been a major disaster for the UK, but it has also been a loss for the EU … If in a moment of such a huge global turmoil, the UK decided to ask to rejoin the EU, I think that for our political model it would be a great victory.” He stressed this was not a victory over the UK but about “our attractiveness”.