158
Starmer: Britain’s ‘Brexit years’ are over and we need Europe, not Donald Trump
(www.independent.co.uk)
this post was submitted on 14 Feb 2026
158 points (99.4% liked)
News
35724 readers
2408 users here now
Welcome to the News community!
Rules:
1. Be civil
Attack the argument, not the person. No racism/sexism/bigotry. Good faith argumentation only. This includes accusing another user of being a bot or paid actor. Trolling is uncivil and is grounds for removal and/or a community ban. Do not respond to rule-breaking content; report it and move on.
2. All posts should contain a source (url) that is as reliable and unbiased as possible and must only contain one link.
Obvious biased sources will be removed at the mods’ discretion. Supporting links can be added in comments or posted separately but not to the post body. Sources may be checked for reliability using Wikipedia, MBFC, AdFontes, GroundNews, etc.
3. No bots, spam or self-promotion.
Only approved bots, which follow the guidelines for bots set by the instance, are allowed.
4. Post titles should be the same as the article used as source. Clickbait titles may be removed.
Posts which titles don’t match the source may be removed. If the site changed their headline, we may ask you to update the post title. Clickbait titles use hyperbolic language and do not accurately describe the article content. When necessary, post titles may be edited, clearly marked with [brackets], but may never be used to editorialize or comment on the content.
5. Only recent news is allowed.
Posts must be news from the most recent 30 days.
6. All posts must be news articles.
No opinion pieces, Listicles, editorials, videos, blogs, press releases, or celebrity gossip will be allowed. All posts will be judged on a case-by-case basis. Mods may use discretion to pre-approve videos or press releases from highly credible sources that provide unique, newsworthy content not available or possible in another format.
7. No duplicate posts.
If an article has already been posted, it will be removed. Different articles reporting on the same subject are permitted. If the post that matches your post is very old, we refer you to rule 5.
8. Misinformation is prohibited.
Misinformation / propaganda is strictly prohibited. Any comment or post containing or linking to misinformation will be removed. If you feel that your post has been removed in error, credible sources must be provided.
9. No link shorteners or news aggregators.
All posts must link to original article sources. You may include archival links in the post description. News aggregators such as Yahoo, Google, Hacker News, etc. should be avoided in favor of the original source link. Newswire services such as AP, Reuters, or AFP, are frequently republished and may be shared from other credible sources.
10. Don't copy entire article in your post body
For copyright reasons, you are not allowed to copy an entire article into your post body. This is an instance wide rule, that is strictly enforced in this community.
founded 2 years ago
MODERATORS
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
view the rest of the comments
It's time for the UK to accept Brexit was a fuckup and get this fixed. Friends forgive friends right?
The EU and the UK could just publish a report that Brexit was planned and orchestrated by Russian intelligence (which is no secret at all) and open the way for the UK to rejoin under the old terms. There is no reason to further punish them, we would all be better off if they get back in even if it is under the favorable conditions that they threw down the drain back in 2016.
Unfortunately the old favourable terms are gone and won't come back. Too toxic in Europe and only 1 country would need to veto it to stop it. Iit's very unlikely the UK will rejoin in the near future as the Common Agricultural Programme remains broken, and signing up for the Euro would remain very toxic. Those are the two big exceptions we had. And of course, free movement of people remains politically toxic in the UK, and we'd never get an exception to that.
I was strongly in favour of remaining, and I'm leaning in favour of rejoining but I'm not massively keen. The reason being Europe was very politically controversial in British politics for decades and Brexit dominated politics for years over all other issues. I am in favour of rejoining the customs union; but even that will be a big ask in the UK and in Europe.
The right wing in the UK are against regulatory alignment and "taking orders" from Europe. And our broken first-past-the-post electoral system gives them disproportionate power in this country. European neighbours would rightly be risk-averse for signing a deal with the UK which another right wing government could just come along and tear up.
The UK should focus on electoral reform before ever considering rejoining the EU. We need true representative democracy, instead of the joke elections we have had such as Boris Johnson getting a huge majority in parliament. He got 44% of the vote and got 56% of the seats, forcing his version of Brexit on the country. And within that parliament the right wing had power within his party because there were enough of them to deny him his majority - their deal or no deal. So we got a hard Brexit. And any deals other governments make can be unpicked in the same way - a small extreme right wing minority can dominate the discourse.
So forget rejoining; push for proportional representation. Our democracy is backwards and stuck in the 19th century.
I think trust would be the big obstacle from the EU’s POV. No point allowing us back in if we’re just going to leave again when the next lot get in
I think if anybody can take us back into the EU it’ll have to be the Tories. Or if the Tories really are dead, Reform
Im not holding my breath
The old terms were very favourable to UK, I don't see how EU would agree to them again in 2026.
The UK would be the second largest economy in the EU. There isn't a way they join without favorable terms.
That’s why I am saying, publish the report. Let everyone know that this was orchestrated as a measure to weaken and exploit Europe and let them back in under the old terms for our own good.
The only thing Russia did was give Britain a little nudge to get them over the finish line. The "Europe question" has been circulating in the UK politics longer than UK has been in the EU and IMO it's been circulating because of British exceptionalism.
When the ECSC was formed UK decided to stay out because UK thought it was still a global superpower. When the ECSC became EEC Britain still decided to stay away. The UK didn't join the EEC until it became apparent that the UK was lagging behind the EEC. And then literally 2 years after joining the EEC, in 1975, Britain held effectively brexit 1.0 referendum, which obviously didn't pass. Then in 80s labour ran on a campaign to leave the EEC. Then in the 90s when the EEC became the EU Britain opted out from integrations. Since the EU became a real thing UK has been consistently one of the most eurosceptic countries in the EU.
Even if such a report was published it wouldn't excuse the decades of anti-EU sentiment. Nor would it guarantee the UK wouldn't do it again, after all they've had 2 attempts at it
And even if the EU was so naive to believe such a report would be enough, there's no chance the UK comes back with all its privileges. The budget rebate is clearly against the interest of the EU. The others are less egregious but they're essentially opt outs of integrating with the EU so demanding those back is IMO contradictory to wanting to rejoin the EU. They shouldn't get those back, so that leaving would become such a headache they wouldn't try a third time.
Sorry, but the EU won't accept the pre-Brexit deal with the UK. One just can't have the cake and eat it. The EU don't want another time wasting happening with other countries leaving the union as well, and regretting only to come back as if nothing happened.
Yes, we want the UK back in.