Rejoin the EU? You must be joking, says Mandelson

Peter Mandelson has dismissed the prospect of a Labour government taking Britain back into the EU, saying "you've got to be joking" about the idea that Brussels would want to renegotiate the UK's membership.

- Richard Partington 

The Labour peer, a former EU trade commissioner and close adviser to Keir Starmer, said rejoining the 27-country bloc would require a referendum that British voters had little desire for, after the Conservatives' botched handling of Brexit.

"I cannot see the British people running towards [a referendum] for love nor money after what we went through during the last one. I really do not think that people are going to run towards a repeat of that experience," he told a British Chambers of Commerce (BCC) event at Heathrow airport yesterday.

Lord Mandelson, speaking at the launch of the lobby group's report on building "Global Britain" after the general election, added that a Starmer government would build closer ties with the EU without rejoining. The EU wanted a more "stable, constructive relationship" with the UK, Mandelson continued, but there was no desire in Brussels for wholesale negotiation of a return.