LONDON, February 27. /TASS/. Many in the UK are beginning to realize that leaving the European Union was a mistake, which is why London is increasingly eager to repair ties with Brussels, former UK Ambassador to Russia (2004-2008) Tony Brenton told TASS in an interview.
"There's much more willingness to talk to the Europeans to try to strengthen links in a way that were weakened at the time of Brexit. Brexit has not turned out to have been a brilliant decision by the United Kingdom. It has been economically damaging and actually politically damaging to an extent. You've got much more influence working within a like-minded group than trying to influence the international situation on your own," the former diplomat replied when asked to comment on British Prime Minister Keir Starmer's statement.
Speaking at the Munich Security Conference earlier, the head of government said that the kingdom was no longer a country of the Brexit era.
US factor
According to the former ambassador, the British establishment is much more aware of the difficulties resulting from the split with the EU than it was five or ten years ago. "British people have woken up to the fact that Brexit was probably a mistake. And the other big factor you've mentioned and I've reinforced has been the increasing difficulty of relying exclusively on the United States," Brenton said.
"That's no longer an option. So for various reasons the tendency in the UK is to edge closer to Europe. Now what I'm not predicting here is a very early decision to try to rejoin the European Union. But to the extent you can find good types of cooperation, stronger types of cooperation between the UK and the EU, people are now actively looking for them in a way that they weren't even two years ago," he added.
Brexit discourse
On February 11, UK Chancellor of the Exchequer Rachel Reeves also spoke out in favor of building closer relations with the European Union. In particular, she stated that the future of the UK is "inextricably bound with that of Europe's," not only for economic reasons, but also in terms of security, sustainability, and defense.
The British opposition accused the ruling Labour Party government of intending to reverse Brexit and called these proposals a major betrayal of the people's will expressed almost 10 years ago.
Britain held a European Union membership referendum on June 23, 2016, with 51.9% of voters choosing to leave the EU. Following several years of negotiations, the country exited the bloc on February 1, 2020. On January 1, 2021, the UK officially ended its post-Brexit transition period, when European rules continued to apply to the country. In December 2020, the EU and the United Kingdom reached a deal that set the terms for their future cooperation, which particularly included a free trade agreement.