Theresa May's number two David Lidington hints UK could rejoin reformed EU in the future
3 min read
Cabinet Office Minister David Lidington has suggested that Britain could rejoin the bloc, but only if it saw substantial reforms.
Speaking to the Daily Telegraph, Lidington said that he did not think that the UK would rejoin the EU in its current form, but that the situation could change in the next 20 years.
“I think that the EU itself is going to change, and I think it is almost inevitable that the dynamic of the single currency is going to drive at least some members of the EU towards much closer economic and, to a degree, political integration in the future’ he said.
‘And I can’t see the UK wanting to go back to that sort of arrangement. But we may be looking in a generation’s time at an EU that is also 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 co-operation is something that future parliaments, future generations, will have to consider.’
A Remain backer during the EU referendum, Mr Lidington previously served as a Europe minister. He took over as Theresa May’s de facto deputy after Damian Green’s resignation as First Secretary last month.
‘I can’t predict sitting here today what the network of organisations and alliances, including the EU and how that will have changed, is going to look in 10 years or 20 years time.And British politicians will have to take decisions about what our deep and special partnership means in a changing context.’
‘I think it’s a red herring to be saying “perhaps we’ll change our minds about going back into the EU in something that looks at all like the thing we’re leaving today. I don’t see that happening.’
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