The question of the UK’s relationship with the EU has resurfaced with Keir Starmer’s premiership drawing to a close and Andy Burnham, his likely successor, preparing to enter No 10. Wes Streeting, until recently one of the contenders for the top job and now a possible future chancellor of the exchequer, went as far as to say recently that Britain should be back in the EU.

The “rejoin” debate in the UK has focused squarely and, parochially, on two things. The first is the cost imposed by Brexit on the UK economy, the second is the price of rejoining – in other words, whether the UK would be able to win back its previous opt-outs from the Euro and Schengen areas.

But this discussion fails to grapple with the bigger international and far more serious questions: what has the EU now become – and is it a club that UK political elites and the public would or should want to rejoin?

The EU of 2026 is an organisation built increasingly on common borrowing, an assertive joint industrial policy and a growing role in security and defence that encroaches on the traditional powers of nation states. It is also an EU that is moving toward a far more assertive stance with regard to the US and China than that of the British government. Understanding these changes should be the central theme of any rejoin debate in the UK.

In the years since the UK exited, the EU has in some ways changed beyond recognition. Confronted with a series of shocks and crises, the remaining 27 governments have responded with substantial levels of joint debt backed by the EU budget. To deal with the consequences of Covid,........

© The Guardian