The UK suffered from slower growth, higher taxes, large EU bills and a big balance of trade deficit all the time it was in the EU. Going back in would be even worse because we would not get the opt outs, lower contributions and what different treatment we did manage to negotiate to ease some of the worst features of full membership.
We would lose the rebate on contributions successfully negotiated by Margaret Thatcher. The EU budget has gone up a lot since we left. The EU is taking on large piles of its own debt, where we would become part liable if we rejoined. It is likely our annual cost of membership would be around £30bn, far higher than last time. How would we pay for that? What taxes would go up? We would of course have to surrender our revenue from Customs dues and the plastics tax as part of the deal.
We would need to join the Euro. That would mean the loss of democratic control over our economy, with the EU telling us to put up taxes or cut spending in line with their fiscal rules. It would mean accepting interest rates and credit controls appropriate for the European average which might not work for us. Look at the damage done to the UK economy, with a nasty boom and bust, from accepting the EU policy of the Exchange Rate Mechanism. Joining the Euro is joining an ERM you cannot get out of, even if it is giving you too much inflation or forcing you into recession.
Going back in would mean putting tariffs back on the imports of goods we do not make and food we do not grow if imported from non EU, and tariffs on the raw materials and intermediate goods we import to feed our factories. It would jeopardise our Free Trade deals with non EU countries, and take away our seat at the table of the World Trade Organisation.
It would mean imposing thousands of new EU regulations that we have avoided by leaving, adding to business costs and make companies less able to compete and survive. It would damage crucial new industries from digital to plant breeding with rules that would ban or restrict innovation.
It would mean greatly adding to the already excessive UK state debt burden. We would become part liable for their big and growing EU debt, and we would b e borrowing more to help pay for the high costs of membership.
May 26, 2026
You seem to have an all or nothing attitude.
May 26, 2026
Virtually all of the EU is nothing of value.
May 26, 2026
‘ Why rejoining the EU would be a bad idea.’
Any attempt to do this would mean a big battle with the electorate. It would be another huge problem for Labour.
Getting closer to the EU is different to rejoining, which would definitely be crossing a red line.
May 26, 2026
It would allow 2TK to ban elections and people they hate. As recent history has shown they have form and with the 5 year terms no one can stop them
May 26, 2026
Five year terms mean nothing if there is civil unrest and the country is ungovernable.
The illegal migration issue plus rejoining the EU would be a recipe for everything to kick off on the streets. All the malcontents would join together.
May 26, 2026
Didn’t Labour in 2020 say that they’d repeal the parliment fixed-term act
May 26, 2026
The single market was one of Mrs Thatcher’s greatest triumphs. So sad that the “modern” Conservative Party rejects her commitment to removing obstacles to trade
May 26, 2026
Yes Gordon, Lady Thatcher saw the Single Market as a massive opportunity to create a free trade market with low regulations and no tarrifs.
Sadly the EU turned it into a protectionist and over regulated system.
The company I worked for soon realised the Single Market developed to be as complicated or even more complicated to trade with compared with America Australia Canada and Middle East et al
May 26, 2026
Stephen with the EU it would be all or nothing. They see us as a recalcitrant child who needs punishment.
An interesting survey recently polled that on a simple question should we rejoin the EU, I believe 47% said yes. When it was added theatre it would probably mean losing the £ and having free movement this dropped to 26%.
As Daniel Hannan pointed out in the Sunday Telegraph, Brussels will be very wary of agreement with Starmer in the event there’s a Reform government in 29.
Farage has made it clear he’ll reverse any detrimental agreements these traitors make
France would probably vetoed us again.
May 26, 2026
Wind today generating 1.45gw out of 40gw installed. 21% of our electricity being imported at £123 per mwh. Good job it’s not November. NESO was hoping to power the grid entirely in renewables but as usual ine component is missing. Somebody please stop this wilful destruction of our power system.
May 26, 2026
Not at all, free trade and less red tape to do this is fine but putting the EU under any form of dynamic alignment or EU political control to acheived this is a very bad idea indeed. The trouble is UK government have been doing bad deals with the EU since the dire Ted Heath took us in (this without even asking for the people’s consent).
May 26, 2026
Lord Simon Wolfson, CEO of the UK retail chain Next, warned that applications for entry-level shop vacancies have nearly doubled from 10 to 19 per vacancy in just two years.
So a crisis in entry-level employment, exacerbated by rising business costs and mad and surely job destroying, doom loop, pure evil policies for Labour.
May 26, 2026
Is the strength of a country proportional to the number of outfits one could wear?
May 27, 2026
Lifelogic: When Edward Heath arrived at the Egmont Palace in Brussels on 22 January 1972 to sign Britain’s treaty of accession to the then EEC ‘Common Market’, an anti-EEC protester threw red ink over him in his shiny grey suit as he ascended the steps. It delayed the signing ceremony by about an hour while he cleaned up and changed.
Unfortunately, he didn’t change enough and still decided to go ahead and sign! What a berk.
May 26, 2026
The EU never seems to offer sensible deals that benefit both side. To the EU it is all about power, control, red tape, fees and taxes and to deter others from leaving.
May 26, 2026
@Lifelogic – it was never about that, it was control to them, a personal them, that are not answerable to anyone just to appease ego. That is why 2TK is so passionate about it, nearly as passionate as is ‘hate’ for the UK and its People
May 26, 2026
IB,
Starmer is not calling the shots even amongst the voters Labour has traditionally counted on.
This piece from a left wing source outlines a different view from the so-called Red Wall :-
https://labourheartlands.com/brexit-the-fortune-tellers-tale/
May 26, 2026
How do you know it benefits both sides? I would eventually start to give credit to your comments if they were considering both sides of the argument, which is very rarely the case.
And who are the others about to leave?
Even the French Rassemblement National (National Rally) would not want to leave the EU if it were to win next year’s presidential elections.
May 27, 2026
Germany wants to leave. So do small countries like Ireland.
May 27, 2026
Don’t know where you get this nonsense from – I’m living South of Dublin and don’t know anyone who wants to leave. There are disagreements with Brussels over some matters yes but that is a long way from wanting to leave – Ireland is transformed from what I remember from forty years ago – it’s something we could never have imagined.
May 26, 2026
You seem to have a belief that the EU is benevolent instead of mired in self-interest.
How is ceding power to the requirements of 27 countries and a self-protecting commission better than taking decisions in our own interest.
May 27, 2026
It has always been all or nothing. Either we govern our own country, or we don’t have a country.
May 27, 2026
Because with the EU, it is all or nothing!
May 26, 2026
Good morning.
Something that is not being talked about and would be the end game should it ever happen.
May 26, 2026
Joining the EU would be like having a mechanism implanted into your head, controlled by some other group of people dictating what you are allowed and not allowed to do and having to agree to pay them for all they bungle and waste. No thanks. Britons prefer freedom.
May 26, 2026
Why rejoining the EU would be a bad idea
Unless it was in any parties manifesto it shouldn’t happen, if liebour goes against the over 17 million who voted out then this would be a act of betrayal on the British people to try and take us back into the dreaded EU without a democratic vote on it and the start of Anarchy if it doesn’t
May 26, 2026
@Mick – The UK joined the EU first time around without it being in any manifesto and without a mandate. If Starmer’s capitulates( and he has form) on the question of free movement of people by July’s meeting, he can just sign us up to be a member of the EU and no one can stop him.
A lot of people could complain, but there are no General Elections in the offing if they come at all. He also has the backing of Parliament and the Establishment. The Minion’s, the People that he demonstrates contempt and ‘hate’ for, i.e. the rest of us are not on his blinkered radar it his ego first, second and every position after, it his ego, his religion that there should always be a higher power a ruler – him.
May 26, 2026
Starmer’s fixation with re-joining the EU no matter the cost is a fundamental issue for all. It explains why he is completely aligned with the Net Zero project. It also explains his casual attitude to migration legal and otherwise.
The ongoing degrading of UK capability both industrial and military can no longer be seen as an unfortunate evolution of world trade practices.
We must look at the unfolding demise of the UKs industrial capability in a different light. It can be argued the weakening of our sovereign state is needed and is predicated on a return to EU. a situation engineered by the Europhile left, to force reconnecting to the EU Commission seen as a lifeboat option following their destructive policies.
The treasonable policies being progressed by Labour is being supported by the establishment against our sovereign interests.
This anti democratic path has to change.
May 26, 2026
The Confederation of British Industry (CBI) issued a report last year strongly in favour of the net zero sector. Their detailed analysis showed unequivocally that the net zero sector is growing three times faster than the overall UK economy, providing high-wage jobs across the country, while cutting climate changing emissions and increasing the UK’s energy security
The CBI showed that the net zero economy grew by 10% in 2024 and generated £83bn in added value. 22,000 net zero businesses employ almost a million people in full-time jobs. The average annual wage in the businesses – £43,000 – was also £5,600 higher than the national average. The report analysed the growth attributable to businesses working in renewable energy, electric vehicles, heat pumps, energy storage, green finance and waste management and recycling.
Net zero is the British industrial opportunity of the 21st century. The sector is expanding strongly, with the 10% growth in 2024 following a 9% jump in 2023.
Farage and his Reform head bangers want to destroy it, claiming that net zero is crippling our economy (really?) Even Badenoch is now calling it a “mistake”. The message is clear; vote Reform and destroy a million well paid jobs and British leadership in the sector
May 26, 2026
SG I don’t know where you get your information. Even the HoL admitted that foe every job net zero created, 9 were lost.
According to your theory we should have robust growth in the UK instead we are teetering on recession. As I’ve pointed ot earlier, windmills are running at below 4% of capacity today and we’re Importing 22% of our electricity. Gridwatch Templar if you wish to check
A handful of companies are raking in billions from taxpayer subsidy. Not one net stupid project is profitable.
May 26, 2026
Sakara, The CBI is probably giving a general overview which is fine as far as it goes, but it lacks significant detail of where those jobs actually are and how they are funded. I would be very dissapointed if the renewable energy sector had not grown by double digit following the mandated adoption of all aspects of it and of course the £billions of tax payers money given as bribes to those renewable industry players. As an example DRAX currently draws down just but burning North American wood pellets £1 billion in government grants. No windfall tax threat for them.
But let’s put the biased state cash give aways and ask a simple question.
Why is it a binary choice option when it comes to energy? What is wrong with having fossil fuel and renewables and then allow the market to decide. The state gives £7,500 grant to anyone installing a heat pump. That’s fine so ling as those wanting to install a gas boiler are offered equivalent help.
Those buying an electric car are given zero tax liability as a benefit in kind that’s fine so long as those buying a fossil fuel powered car are given the same privilege.
If solar panels are an economic choice for home owners than fine remove the feed in tariff benefit and allow solar to compete in the true market.
I don’t understand why the green side of the political landscape are so dismissive of the centre right simply because we seek choices and fair options unfettered by Eco warrior hype.
May 26, 2026
SG
Is anyone surprised the CBI which lobbies for big buisiness best interests, likes Net Zero ?
Hundreds of billions being spent by the State in subsidies and grants ready for their members to lap up.
May 26, 2026
SG:
The reason that the CBI can claim that the Net Zero sector is growing 3 times faster than the UK economy and the annual wage is £5600 higher is because of all the subsidies paid to this industry by the rest of the economy, by the tax-payer and through increasing borrowing. According to Professor Gordon Hughes of the Renewable Energy Foundation the UK taxpayer has already funded £220bn in renewable subsidies (£8000/household) since 2002 (2024 prices) and is currently funding £26bn/year. NESO say their Clean Power 2030 project will cost “over £40bn annually”. This is in addition to all the disruption and expense of the forced transition to expensive and impractical evs and heat pumps. There’s no business opportunity for the UK in Net Zero. All the infrastructure (turbines, solar panels, transformers, cabling etc etc) and devices (evs and heat pumps) are being imported from China who use coal-power, slave labour and ignore the environmental damage from mining and manufacture. Even the concrete for fixed offshore wind turbines is imported from China. The Guardian reported today that the world’s largest mining company, the Australian BHP, has put on ice renewable projects designed to power its iron ore operations saying “Many of the technologies the resources industry will need to achieve net zero are not yet ready to be deployed.” In fact so low is the ERoEI (Energy Return on Energy Invested) for renewables that they have insufficient energy to replace themselves.
David Turver: Why ERoEI Matters
https://davidturver.substack.com/p/why-eroei-matters
Oh, and BTW, (anthropogenic) CO2 has little if any effect on global temperature. Just check the history of CO2 and temperature.
May 28, 2026
Exactly
May 26, 2026
SG
Great news then, World leaders at last !
Shame all of the more traditional industries, employers, will close down, and some of the new ones will go elsewhere due to the cost,
Still we can all still perhaps sell coffee to each other when we go out to visit the charity shops in our high streets
May 27, 2026
Subsidies and regulation dear boy
Business will travel in the direction of statute and free money. (See DEI and ESG for correlation)
May 26, 2026
“This anti-democratic path has to change” Alas I rather doubt it will do, we have had it ever since Ted Heath 50+ years.
May 27, 2026
Starmer’s Labour prior to the election promised no return to the EU single market, the customs union or the freedom of movement. This was a firm position. Britain would not rejoin any of these blocs during his lifetime. Is this perhaps why he is being manoeuvred out?
May 26, 2026
Well if we don’t get rid of Starmer and then Burnham and the Labour party. We’ll be right back in as junior members. The back door is open and the EU zealots are working away.
May 26, 2026
Seems so.
Farage hits out at Elon Musk over support for Reform rival Restore UK in Makerfield byelection
Nigel Farage leader warned the Tesla boss will ‘split the right’ after he backed Rupert Lowe’s party.
It is quite possible that Reform and Kemi’s insistence on putting up a pointless candidate will mean Burnham scapes through! Though I still thing the Lancastrian Voters of Makerfield will do the right thing. Reform is the only option with any chance – do not confuse with confusingly named Restore!
May 26, 2026
Indeed. The Two-tier Europe concept is far from dead – the top tier of Euro states and the rest. The EU will be very keen both to exploit (rob) and to punish the UK by making it an example of what happens to states that might want to leave. It would be greatly to the advantage of the EU to make an example of Britain also to encourage the non-Euro states to get their houses in order and join the euro. The EU will then be able to move quickly to full banking, monetary and budegtary control of all EU states. A great step in ever closer union towards founding the single State of Europe.
May 27, 2026
It’s dead. They are calling for a fully Federal EU now.
May 26, 2026
It could be that if we get a left-green axis of evil after the next election – quite possible if the right continues to form a circular firing squad – even full EU membership may be the only escape. This was partly the logic for Thatcher and free market Conservatives in the 70s: EEC rules as were at least put a constraint on the worst excesses of socialism.
May 27, 2026
They were proven wrong.
May 26, 2026
Yes so right – it would mean the end of the UK as a country effectively, with worse conditions than before, more strenuous self destroying legislation, we’d be at the mercy of the wind, sucked dry economically by a system that has always seen us as a cash cow.
On top of that we’d still be at the effect of the ECHR, something we’ve hated for so long, which on top of our faulty justice system would make life more intolerable. We would never get our fishing rights back, while we would see even more illegal aliens being dumped here with few options but to absorb them and risk becoming a place of Islam.
May 26, 2026
The reasons for not rejoining the EU remain the same as why we needed to leave.
We are the only country that was a net contributor and who had a trade deficit with the block. Thus negating any advantages gained from a trade surplus or subsidy.
Our civil service gold plates all EU regulations to our disadvantage.
We have the economies of scale and internal markets which can we can function alone.
We were on the periphery and a lone voice among 27.
May 26, 2026
In 2016, we, as a nation, democratically voted to leave the EU. Now in 2026, my reasoning for leaving remains the same.
I did not want my country to be ruled by a group of unelected, unaccountable and unknown foreigners all based in a foreign country.
I wanted the true sovereign status quo of being able to elect and deselect our own British government to make and to enforce OUR laws from our UK capital rather than have those foreigners tell us what to do from Belgium.
If that makes me xenophobic, then so be it, for I will always fear those who try to force us Britons to do what they want, especially when they have no such mandate from the British citizens.
May 27, 2026
I too do not want my country to be ruled by a group of unelected, unaccountable and unknown foreigners all based in a foreign country. That is why the EU is such a very good thing – its rules are made by a group of elected, accountable and known politicians in the Council and the Parliament. And good for you to want the true sovereign status quo of being able to elect and deselect your own British government – in the EU you did that every four or five years, as you chose
May 26, 2026
Rejoining the EU is out of the question anyway. The Maastricht Treaty requires candidate states should have a debt to GDP ratio no more than 60%. For us to qualify, it would mean suspending benefits and state pensions for a few years. This would depress the economy for a while with less spending from these groups, so it would take a little longer than you first calculated.
I see no hint the EU is prepared to revoke the Maastricht Treaty just to accommodate Little Britain.
May 26, 2026
The EU decides which rules will apply and which will not. It always makes exceptions for political reasons, Anyway the current state of debt among EU states already breaking the rule, according to EU Commission data is as follows:
Greece: \(146.1\%\)
• Italy: \(137.1\%\)
• France: \(115.6\%\)
• Belgium: \(107.9\%\)
• Spain: \(100.7\%\)
• Portugal: \(89.7\%\)
• Finland: \(88.5\%\)
• Austria: \(81.5\%\)
• Hungary: \(74.6\%\)
• Slovenia: \(65.7\%\)
• Germany: \(63.5\%\)
• Slovakia: \(61.4\%\)
May 26, 2026
States have debt to GDP above 60% because the EU hasn’t enforced the rules. They are also already members so can’t be ejected.
Sure the EU can choose to ignore the rules, but who has the authority? The Commission can’t disregard a treaty, the Council can’t set aside a treaty without a referendum in their respective countries and the Parliament can talk about it but do nothing.
All it would take is one dissenting country bringing the matter to the ECJ and the treaty would be upheld.
May 26, 2026
The UK and its People would be denied the ‘freedom’ of self-determination.
But lest get real the UK Parliament and Establishment is first and foremost a Socialist cabal, being in the EU would remove all the last resemblances of democracy and place it directly under rule by the unelected unaccountable. That would also full-fill Kier Starmer’s dream, his legacy to the enslavement of a people to appease his ego. Onward to unelected World Government..
May 26, 2026
and ruled by people like Starmer and Hermer!
May 26, 2026
As somebody else pointed out with Farage and Reform waiting in the wings there is no chance that the EU will spend time discussing rejoining in any meaningful way – although there could be associate membership on the cards to cover some areas like defence industries, food and energy maybe with free movement but all of that is still a long way from a place at the top table.
May 26, 2026
We could put it another way – with the Lords stuffed with brexiteers it is unlikely legislation could pass to allow for alignment or anything like it.
May 27, 2026
The Lords (which is in fact stuffed with Remainers) cannot overrule the Commons.
May 26, 2026
The future is remaining independent and fully delivering it
May 26, 2026
For Starmer’s Gang and the Woke Left it is not about the economy. It is about supranational government. The EU is a step towards the replacement of nation states by a global socialist order. If achieving this makes a few people poorer, so be it. A price worth paying. Only in a borderless socialist state can all people be treated equally. Only then can everyone be assured that no-one will have an unfair advantage over others.
The irony is that the EU intends to become a single state, the State of Europe. If and when Ukraine is absorbed into this state I wonder how, after fighting for their sovereign independence from Russia, Ukrainians will take to yet another regime of foreign rule by people they don’t know and who don’t know them and who will not be accountable to them in any meaningful way. Remembering their brutal murderous occupation and exploitation by Germany in two world wars they may not be too keen on their critical minerals being exploited for huge profits by German industry, funded by international aid, for the benefit of German Energiewende and EU Green Energy. That is certainly the future that awaits Ukraine in the EU. Sovereign democracy it will not be.
May 26, 2026
No-one has voted for rejoining the EU; in fact, the contrary applies. If that is what Labour have in mind, they should call a general election, so that the electorate can have some say in the matter. In any case, judging by the recent success of Reform UK, there is little appetite for rejoining.
May 26, 2026
Whether the EU is good or bad for the UK is moot ….it should only be achieved by a referendum, which has been clearly stated as priority 1 in a manifesto
May 26, 2026
I didn’t really understand this. “Priority 1 in a manifesto”? What manifesto is being referred to?
May 26, 2026
Any government that intends to bring the UK into the EU, should in any future manifesto, clearly state their intent ……and so that joe public understands, they should state it as their number one policy
May 26, 2026
Only complete fools would consider rejoining the EU. Sadly, we have a Government full of them.
May 26, 2026
Been listening to Andrew Bridgen over the last few days… I tend to believe him. Staggering reflections on the corruption and state of this country, the rigging of elections and so on.
This country is really in trouble.
May 26, 2026
It’s over 10 years since the referendum. If Brexit had even some modest successes to its name, you wouldn’t need to make this argument. You seem very defensive, and I am not surprised – Brexit is a proven failure, no wonder the push to rejoin is getting stronger
May 26, 2026
Agree, the brexit derived by Tory and Labour have failured ….we need a reform brexit
May 26, 2026
I quite agree, rejoining the EU would be a huge disaster for Britain. Labour clearly doesn’t live on the same planet.
May 26, 2026
The EU slowly but surely lessening the majority vote criteria and that’s with the existing 27. That will continue and worsen with 33+ on board presumably.
Euro / £ – monetary union, no thank you. Said it before but should we be concerned by the likelihood of future fiscal union and joint debt in full ? The EU can’t be what it really aspires to be without fiscal union.
The EU Commission President is supportive it seems of SKS’s intentions for us but has signalled that there is a likely a limited ‘window of opportunity’ for us, basically 2 years, which may not be open to us after that. He obviously knows that & no doubt in a bit of a rush.
Migrant quotas – the new EU scheme coming into force very shortly. A bit like Labour’s current dispersals action throughout the country, after all it’s only fair we all get our share we are told, but will not be under our own government’s say so but the EU’s.
No to full freedom of movement – why is it we never learn. Why is it that some people can’t be honest with themselves & see the wider picture. More EU accessions coming up in future years too.
We would no doubt be in receipt of future Infringement Proceedings when there is a failure, often unintended, to make sense of & obey the EU’s tangle of rules and regulations – fines and penalties. In fact, is there any evidence we have by now paid off those vast amounts we incurred during our membership I wonder.
May 26, 2026
They know rejoining the EU would be a bad idea for the UK. That’s the second reason they’re doing it as socialism depends upon making and keeping people poor. The primary reason is of course to finally destroy any democracy in the UK by being controlled by a state whose goal is to emulate the USSR.
May 26, 2026
77 ‘illegal immigrants’ invaded the UK yesterday 25th May 2026 …just another hotel full of a size the same as a army infantry company
May 27, 2026
GC: Making the total MAY 01 to MAY 25 inclusive – official figures: 2149 arrivals in 33 boats.
May 26, 2026
+1
May 26, 2026
Hi sir john
We should definitely not join the EU
The conservatives failed us big time especially the present leader of the conservatives
but instead of labour taking the baton and getting deals done around the world
They want to rejoin the EU
Two government’s have let the people and the country down maybe we don’t have the kind of people in government capable of negotiating people like Margaret Thatcher
May 26, 2026
Deals are made by individual companies. If as you seem to expect the UK state is to be involved it would likely be with some subsidies, ie from the UK taxpayers.
Is that really what you want from the ‚free market‘?
May 27, 2026
There’s asolutely no chance for rejoining the EU given the negative attitude to all things EU – so why bring it up?
May 27, 2026
It is being done by stealth with no democratic mandate at vast cost to this nation.