Would a pledge to rejoin the EU rescue Labour at the polls?
Labour’s low popularity is a consequence of the following: voters’ looser loyalty to parties; the government’s similarity to the one voters booted out with gusto last year; and little relief from a still-present crisis in the cost of living. Immigration dominates the discourse right now, but the cost of living remains the most salient voter-issue. Not only is this pulling Labour back, it’s driving Reform ahead.
There are suggestions, though the government has not announced anything, that the party could rejuvenate its base by promising to rejoin the European Union.
The pledge could, in theory, rally and unite the most Remain-minded. Labour is currently leaking almost one in ten supporters to the Liberal Democrats. And Remain voters did vote for Keir Starmer’s party last year. And Rejoin is the plurality option right now. But Remain-minded voters are not single-minded in their politics. Ukip was the harbinger of the EU referendum, though Ukip primarily got its votes not for bashing the Brussels Bureaucracy, but for anticipating the country on immigration.
To Britain’s Remain voters, it’s not Rejoin or nothing. At best, it would be a gain of a few hundred thousand votes – a few percentage points in the opinion polls.
Also, a vow to rejoin can’t be done in isolation. It won’t come without consequences. It would mean sacrificing air-time on something else.
There would be gross gains for Labour in putting Rejoin on the ballot. But there would be net losses at the ballot box.
Rejoin may be the preference of the median Briton. But it’s not the priority of the median Briton. An effective campaign understands when to go in hard on its comfort issues. Rejoin is a comfort issue. This is no time for comfort issues.
July polling by BMG suggests that, when asked if they preferred to Rejoin or stay out, most want in. That includes almost a fifth of Reform voters. And a quarter of Labour supporters who want to stay out. If Labour was to reopen the wounds of 2016 it would threaten the shaky, now hollowed, but nonetheless victorious coalition that gave it the benefit of the doubt in 2024.
I was in Brussels in June, speaking about the future of UK-EU relations and public opinion, on both sides of the Channel.
On the (delayed) flight over, I was having a muse. Do these Brussels bigwigs want to know whether the UK’s voters are clamouring to Rejoin? I prepared some notes. But during the sessions nothing about it came up. I asked the thinkers in the room why Brussels isn’t interested in whether Britons want to come back?
They think it’s not going to happen. Not for this generation. They all know Rejoin is not on the agenda. Unravelling the new relationship after unravelling EU membership is not for one-term parties. Only when there is a cross-party consensus on the issue will the serious players take Rejoin seriously.
We are nowhere near that. Putting Rejoin on the ballot is the stuff of unserious people. It’s something for another decade.
[See also: The Epping ruling deepens Labour’s immigration nightmare]
Content from our partners
Related
Join the debate
Subscribe here to comment