UK could rejoin EU in future, says May deputy
Lidington states that Brexit will stand, but in years to come Europe might be very different from today
BRITAIN could rejoin a reformed European Union within a generation, Theresa May’s de facto deputy prime minister has said, suggesting it would be “something for future parliaments to consider”.
In an interview with The Daily Telegraph, David Lidington, the Cabinet Office Minister who replaced Damian Green at the Prime Minister’s side in this month’s reshuffle, said it was impossible to predict what the EU would look like in “10 or 20 years’ time”. “It’s dangerous to say never,” he added.
Mr Lidington, who campaigned for Remain during the EU referendum and is one of the Government’s most prominent Europhiles, said he had not changed his views on Brexit but as a democrat it was his job to implement the will of the people. The former Europe minister now chairs several key Cabinet sub-committees on Brexit.
In his first interview since taking on the new role, he said it was possible Britain could join some form of cus- toms union with the EU after Brexit. The Government is committed to leaving the single market and the customs union, but Mr Lidington said if there was “some different framework that we can arrive at in negotiations that will be mutually beneficial”, it could work to “everybody’s advantage”.
Earlier this week, Justine Greening, the former education secretary, suggested future generations of MPS could “undo” Brexit if it did not “work for them”. Emmanuel Macron, the French president, has said the UK could “find its place” in a “reformed and simplified EU” within a few years of leaving.
Asked whether Mr Macron and Ms Greening could be right, Mr Lidington said it was a “red herring” to suggest Britain could rejoin the EU in its current form. However, he added: “We may be looking in a generation’s time at an EU that is configured differently from what it is today. The exact nature of the relationship between the United Kingdom and that future system, whatever it turns out to be, of European cooperation is something that future parliaments, future generations will have to consider.”
Yesterday Mrs May refused once again to say whether she would vote Leave if the EU referendum happened now. She said: “I would do what I did last time round which was sit down and look carefully at the issues.”
In an interview with a French television station, Mrs May was asked: “Do you feel European?” She replied “Yes”.
Since moving to the Cabinet Office, Mr Lidington has spent most of his time taking charge of the fallout from the collapse of Carillion. He rejected Jeremy Corbyn’s suggestion that outsourcing had become a “racket” or that PFI contracts should be taken back under public sector control.
David Lidington has had an exhausting week. Just seven days after he became Minister for the Cabinet Office – and thus the most powerful man in British politics – Carillion went bust and he was left holding the ball. Theresa May instinctively turned to her new de facto deputy to handle the crisis, and the former BP man has repaid her trust by devoting all of his considerable energy to steering the Government through choppy waters.
Despite the punishing hours that this entailed, as he sits in an armchair in his office overlooking Whitehall, he appears as fresh as a man who has just come back from a long holiday. He is clearly someone who thrives on the intellectual challenge of high office.
And the biggest challenge of all is Brexit. As the chairman of several key Cabinet Brexit sub-committees, Mr Lidington has an influential role to play in preparations for the second round of negotiations with Brussels.
One of the key issues of those talks will be whether Britain could join some form of customs union with the EU, though remaining in the customs union is off the table.
“There are some serious flaws with the customs union as it’s currently established,” Mr Lidington says. “Turkey, which is part of the EU customs union but not an EU member, has to give access to its markets to goods from countries like South Korea, where the EU has a trade deal, but with no guarantee the South Koreans will accept goods back in response. Clearly I don’t think we would want the UK to be in such a situation.
“But we want trade to be as easy and frictionless as possible between this country and our 27 partners in the EU.
“If by a customs union it means a deal that gives you frictionless trade, that was in the PM’S Lancaster House speech [last January].
“We don’t think it will be in our interests for the UK, after leaving the EU, to remain in the single market or customs union of the EU.
“If there is some different framework that we can arrive at in negotiations that will be mutually beneficial, that will provide for trade in goods and services as easily as possible across frontiers, then that can work to everybody’s advantage.”
The issue of whether Britain joins some form of customs union is likely to be the cause of tension between Remainers and Leavers in the Cabinet.
Leavers fear that being part of any form of customs union would prevent the UK from signing trade deals with the US and other global markets.
Mr Lidington was firmly in the Remain camp during the 2016 EU Referendum, and said: “I don’t resile from anything that I said or did during the referendum campaign, but I’m a democrat and I went into the referendum believing the result should be binding and I have to accept that result. What the Government needs to do now is to bend all its energies, as it is now doing, to get the best possible deal for all of the UK.”
Could Britain one day rejoin the EU, as Justine Greening and Emmanuel Macron have suggested?
“It’s dangerous to say ‘never’ in politics but I just think that having taken a decision by a referendum I don’t see that changing,” he says. There is, however, a caveat.
“I think the EU itself is going to change … we may be looking in a generation’s time at an EU that is configured differently from what it is today and the exact nature of the relationship between the UK and that future system, whatever it turns out to be, of European cooperation is something that future parliaments, future generations will have to consider.
“There’s going to be a need for a system of cooperation within the continent of Europe, including the UK, that covers both economic and political cooperation.
“We are remaining part of other structures: Nato most obviously, the Organisation for Security and Cooperation in Europe, the Council of Europe, and so on, so I can’t predict sitting here today what that network of organisations and alliances, including the EU, how that will change or is going to look in 10 years’ or 20 years’ time.
“British politicians will have to take decisions about what our deep and special partnership means in a changing context but I think it’s a red herring to say perhaps we will change our minds about going back into the EU in something that looks at all like the thing that we’re leaving today.”
As a Europhile, Mr Lidington might be expected to support Boris Johnson’s idea of a bridge across the Channel, but he cannot resist a friendly joke at his colleague’s expense.
“It’s an intriguing suggestion,” he says. “Is it proposed there should be a zip wire alongside it? (a reference to the then London Mayor getting stuck halfway across a zip wire during a stunt in 2012). “The idea of joint infrastructure projects with France is a good idea. The question of how a bridge would manage a major shipping lane – those are not things that are on my desk at the moment.”
Brexit is the dominant force in politics, but Mr Lidington is keen to discuss the more immediate problem weighing down his desk.
“What’s happened with Carillion is awful for the people who worked for the company,” he says. “Clearly we are going to need to learn lessons from it.”
The former directors of Carillion have become lightning rods for public anger at the collapse of the corporate giant. They include Richard Howson, its former chief executive, who is being paid his £660,000 salary for a year after leaving the company. The payments have been stopped by the official receiver, but should the directors voluntarily return the bonuses they have already pocketed?
“If I were a director of Carillion I would be engaging in some pretty profound soul-searching at the moment,” Mr Lidington says.
For the Government, the lessons of Carillion are likely to include spreading the burden of public sector contracts far more widely.
At 61, Mr Lidington is the same age as Theresa May and insists he has no ambitions to replace her. He said: “The closer you get to No10 the more you see what a back-breaking job that is, the pressure is absolutely constant and the loss of privacy is almost complete, so I don’t have ambitions in that direction and there is no vacancy nor likely to be during my time in politics. I’m with her for as long as she wishes to carry on.”