Lord Spencer Livermore (far right) pictured with chief secretary to the Treasury James Murray (left) and Chancellor of the Exchequer Rachel Reeves, (centre) sees Britain's return to the EU as in the national interest. Photo / Getty Images
Britain’s return to the European Union is “an inevitability”, a Treasury minister has claimed.
Lord Spencer Livermore, the Financial Secretary to the Treasury, told peers on Monday that “of course” the UK would return to the EU because it was in its “national interest”.
It is the first time a serving minister has publicly backed overturning the 2016 referendum vote in a sign that senior Labour figures are considering a full reversal of Brexit.
Speaking in the Lords, Lord Livermore said: “Should we, in due course, re-enter the European Union? In my personal view that is an inevitability. Of course the UK will re-enter the European Union, because it is absolutely in our national economic interest.”
Livermore, a former special adviser to Gordon Brown, also suggested that Sir Keir Starmer’s reset with Brussels, set to be completed this summer, was a staging post towards rejoining.
He said: “In the meantime, we are doing the European reset, and that is incredibly important in helping growth in our economy.”
His comments go beyond Labour’s manifesto commitment not to return to the single market or the customs union, and go further than any minister has previously.
Wes Streeting, the former health secretary, who is expected to challenge for the Labour leadership, has made the reversal of Brexit a centrepiece of his campaign.
Andy Burnham, the Mayor of Greater Manchester and the front-runner to replace Starmer, said last year he hoped to see Britain return to the EU in his lifetime, but has since played down those comments.
Burnham is campaigning to become the next Labour MP for Makerfield, which voted heavily to leave the EU in 2016.
Last month, the Telegraph revealed that Starmer privately sounded out senior Labour figures on the prospect of rejoining the EU, but they told him it would be a “catastrophe”.
Livermore was a chief strategist to Brown when he was Chancellor and then Prime Minister. He was raised to the peerage in 2015 and appointed a Treasury Minister by Starmer when he won the election.
His comments came in response to a question from Lord MacKinlay, a former Conservative MP, who asked Livermore whether he agreed with Cabinet Ministers “who wish to see the UK re-enter the single market and a customs union, which would stop most of those economic measures that are currently in the hands of the Government at a stroke”.
He also asked whether he was “concerned with the EU reset, which will have many of the same restrictions”.
Livermore said in response that Mackinlay was a “Brexit zealot”.
“Cutting tariffs may gain us 0.001% of GDP, whereas Brexit itself has cost us a minimum of 4% of GDP, although estimates now say that it ranges from 6% to 8%,” he said.
“We are seeking to mitigate at the margins the huge damage done to the UK economy by Brexit, so the idea that this is some kind of Brexit benefit is absurd.”
Lord Frost, who was Boris Johnson’s negotiator with the EU, wrote on X: “Treasury minister Lord Livermore said yesterday in Parliament he thought it an ‘inevitability’ that Britain would rejoin the EU”.
“We always knew it was what Labour ministers thought. But to say it on the record in Parliament shows a new degree of confidence about the direction of travel. So Labour won’t stop now. One concession will lead to another, because they believe they already know the end point. You can’t trust Labour on the EU.”
Labour’s 2024 manifesto said: “With Labour, Britain will stay outside the EU. But to seize the opportunities ahead, we must make Brexit work. We will reset the relationship and seek to deepen ties with our European friends, neighbours and allies.
“That does not mean reopening the divisions of the past. There will be no return to the single market, the customs union, or freedom of movement.”
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