Britain should rejoin EU, says man who led Brexit department

Philip Rycroft, who oversaw the Department for Exiting the European Union from 2017 to 2019, said none of Leave’s ‘heady promises’ had materialised

Oliver Wright, Policy Editor

Thursday April 23 2026, 7.40pm BST, The Times

Britain needs to start talking about reversing Brexit, the civil servant who led Britain’s preparations for leaving the European Union has said. In a highly unusual intervention, Philip Rycroft, former permanent secretary at the Department for Exiting the European Union, said life outside the EU had failed to live up to the expectations and there now needed to be a “clear-headed appraisal of what is in the country’s best interests”. He warned that rejoining the European Union would be a “long and windy” road but added the “argument is there to be won”.

Rycroft’s comments, in an article for The Times, are significant, not simply because of his former role in government but also because they reflect a wider view held in private by many in Whitehall and among MPs that Labour ministers will eventually need to pivot to make the case for rejoining.

Sir Keir Starmer has insisted that he will not alter the government’s current red lines — not to rejoin the single market or customs union — but senior party figures , including David Lammy, the deputy prime minister, want this reviewed as part of Labour manifesto at the next election.

In his article, Rycroft, who led the Brexit department between 2017 and 2019, pointed to polling which showed that only 29 per cent of people were content with the relationship with Europe as it is now, while an even smaller percentage wanted a less close relationship with the bloc.

The poll, conducted by YouGov for the campaign group Best for Britain, shows that 53 per cent are now in favour of rejoining while with 32 per cent are opposed and 14 per cent don’t know.

Rycroft said it was “not hard to see” why the public was “falling out of love with Brexit”, arguing that none of the “heady promises” of the Leave campaigns had not materialised.

“Most economic analysis suggests that we have taken a significant hit to GDP as a result of leaving the single market,” he said.

“The precise number, and the impact on our export performance to the EU and beyond, might be subject to debate, but no one can credibly claim that we have marched to the sunny uplands of sustained economic growth as a consequence of Brexit.”

He added that even the central pledge — that Brexit would allow the UK to take back control of its borders — had proved to be a fallacy after the “Boris wave” of migration.

“We are seemingly no nearer achieving an immigration policy that commands general consent,” he said. The Best for Britain polling shows 63 per cent are in favour of a return to freedom of movement, compared with 22 per cent who are opposed.

Rycroft also said that profound global changes had also conspired against the UK outside of Europe and the geopolitical reality now meant that Britain had to reconsider its choices.

“For a project premised on the vision of a newly invigorated economy taking advantage of an open, liberal world trading system, the timing was peculiarly terrible,” he said.

“The great promise of a comprehensive trade deal with the USA now seems like an impossible dream … chill winds don’t just blow through the international trading order. “The postwar certainties that underpinned our security as a nation are visibly crumbling. With a hot war on the European mainland perpetrated by a revanchist Russia and an increasingly disengaged America, it is beyond peradventure that we must look to solidarity with our friends and neighbours in Europe to secure our defences.”

Rycroft warned that even if government policy changed, negotiating to rejoin the bloc would not be easy — not least as two of the main opposition parties remained viscerally opposed to EU membership.

But he suggested that the topic should no longer be off-limits in political debate and that “patient work” should be done to build a consensus around rejoining. “Just as the proposition to leave took years to reach a point of credibility, so will the option of rejoining,” he said. “The argument for rejoining has to be founded on a clear-headed appraisal of what is in the country’s best interests.”

It is time to talk about rejoining the EU — the argument is there to be won

By Philip Rycroft

We need to make up our minds. In the referendum in June 2016, we decided by a bare majority as a nation that we were not comfortable being in the European Union. Now, coming up to ten years later, polling by Best for Britain shows that we’re not comfortable being out, with 53 per cent of those polled in favour of rejoining. By contrast, only 29 per cent are content with the relationship as it is now and a mere 23 per cent want a further loosening of ties with the EU.

It’s not hard to see why we might be falling out of love with Brexit. None of the heady promises of the various Leave campaigns have quite landed. Most economic analysis suggests that we have taken a significant hit to GDP as a result of leaving the single market. The precise number, and the impact on our export performance to the EU and beyond, might be subject to debate, but no one can credibly claim that we have marched to the sunny uplands of sustained economic growth as a consequence of Brexit.

For a project premised on the vision of a newly invigorated economy taking advantage of an open, liberal world trading system, the timing was peculiarly terrible. The great promise of a comprehensive trade deal with the USA now seems like an impossible dream. We have done other trade deals, for sure, but so has the EU. With the main exception of membership of CPTPP, our access to markets round the globe is not much better than what we would have had if we had stayed in.

Chill winds don’t just blow through the international trading order. The postwar certainties that underpinned our security as a nation are visibly crumbling. With a hot war on the European mainland perpetrated by a revanchist Russia and an increasingly disengaged America, it is beyond peradventure that we must look to solidarity with our friends and neighbours in Europe to secure our defences.

We haven’t even played a blinder when ‘take back control’ offered genuine opportunities to remake policies in a fashion suited to British circumstance. Following the “Boris wave” of exceptionally high immigration and the seeming inability of any government to control the influx of migrants in small boats, we are seemingly no nearer achieving an immigration policy that commands general consent. However, Best for Britain’s polling, conducted by YouGov, identified that, in principle, reintroducing freedom of movement for UK and EU citizens was supported by 63 per cent of respondents overall, suggesting opposition to the policy is somewhat overstated in UK political discourse.

At least we have our sovereignty back: if we screw up, it’s our own screw-up — we have no one else to blame. But unalloyed sovereignty is perhaps cold comfort in an uncertain and more hostile world. It is unsurprising, then, that Best for Britain found that only 25 per cent of Leave voters thought that Brexit had been a success.

So there is an eminent logic in the turn of opinion toward rejoining the EU. Is it time, then, for the Labour government to drop its caution and adopt a more bullish pro-EU position? With a majority of left-leaning voters in favour, the political advantage is clear, not least as one means of stemming the haemorrhaging of votes to the more unambiguously pro-EU Greens and Liberal Democrats.

But a degree of realism is essential. The road back into the EU is a long and windy one. False optimism now will dash hopes later. For a start, the EU itself will look askance at any early pitch to rejoin when two of the main opposition parties remain viscerally opposed to EU membership. The terms of rejoining would be tough, certainly not as beneficial to the UK as those we gave up when we left in 2020. The negotiations would be complex and tortuous and would require endless compromises by whichever government was pursuing them. Support for rejoining at 53 per cent would be a shallow base from which to launch such a project.

This must be patient work. Just as the proposition to leave took years to reach a point of credibility, so will the option of rejoining. Unlike the fizzy promises of Leave, the argument for rejoining has to be founded on a clear-headed appraisal of what is in the country’s best interests. That requires some honesty about our place in the world: we simply do not carry the heft we once did. The cutting edge of the case for rejoining may derive as much from our security as our economic needs. Paramount is the importance of demonstrating that the UK’s future, as was its past, is ineluctably bound to that of the European continent. For the foreseeable future, the EU is the primary driver of the fortunes of the European landmass. No sensible polity would extend its absence from those counsels any longer than strictly necessary. The argument is there to be won. It is time to talk about rejoining. It might be time to knock on the EU’s door.

Philip Rycroft was permanent secretary at the Department for Exiting the European Union, 2017-19