Michel Barnier says Britain could apply to rejoin the European Union without having to adopt the euro. Free movement, he says, is a different matter. It comes with the single market, and it is not a point Brussels will trade away for a returning member. The former chief negotiator's comments land on a thin political Thursday: Andy Burnham is back from Antigua, the Commons is in recess until Tuesday, and Nigel Farage is holding a press conference of his own.
Farage has argued that a British reapplication would mean signing up to the single currency. That reading has never convinced people who have sat in the room. New members are in principle expected to adopt the euro. Six of the 27 current members do not use it. Denmark has a formal opt-out. There is a long record of the Union accepting a fudge when the politics require one. Barnier's point is that the fudge has a boundary. The currency can wait. The market cannot.
What would actually be negotiated
A reapplication is not Burnham's policy this morning. It is the argument Farage wants to have, because it ties any closer European relationship to a loss of the pound. Barnier separates the two. Sterling, he implies, can stay. The right to move for work, and the rules that make a single market a single market, cannot be carved out and still be called membership. That is the sentence British politicians have spent a decade trying to soften. He has not softened it.
Barnier's Terms
- Britain could rejoin without having to take the euro.
- Six EU states do not use the single currency. Denmark has an opt-out.
- Free movement is not negotiable if Britain wants the single market.
- Farage has said rejoining would mean adopting the euro.
- The Commons is in recess until Tuesday. Burnham is back from CHOGM.
A London morning with two European facts
The other European fact of the week is Irish, not French. Public sector mediators in Dublin are still talking, and a strike of about 300,000 workers is still fixed for 12 November, the day European leaders meet in the city. Barnier's interview does not move that diary. It does reset a British talking point before Farage stands up. Reform's announcement is about an RAF wing commander. The questions will not stay on defence.
For Burnham, home from a Commonwealth summit that has just written time-bound slavery talks into its communique, the Barnier line is useful and dangerous at once. Useful, because it answers a scare about the pound. Dangerous, because free movement remains the issue his own voters, and Reform's, treat as closed. The negotiator has described the door. He has not said the government is walking through it.