UK could be fast-tracked back into EU, pro-Brussels group argues

Britain could rejoin the EU in the space of a single parliament if London and Brussels were politically aligned, according to a new report backed by a senior former bloc official and a leading member of the European parliament.

Pro-EU pressure group Best for Britain said fears that the UK reaccession process would be bitter and "take a decade" were overblown, citing Finland's completion of its EU joining process in less than three years in the mid-1990s.

Ten years after Brexit, the possibility of the UK rejoining the EU was thrust back on to the political agenda by Andy Burnham last month, when the prime minister said Britain could "go all the way" to reversing the 2016 referendum.

In his speech to the Labour Party conference, Burnham warned that the current Brexit settlement was damaging the UK economy and promised a national debate about "options" for future relations ahead of a major UK-EU summit due to take place next month.

UK ministers have not given details of how the government intends to hold the discussion, but Burnham's overture was quickly welcomed by several EU leaders, including France's President Emmanuel Macron and Spain's Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez.

Polling by YouGov after Burnham's speech found that 52 per cent of Britons would vote to rejoin the bloc, while 27 per cent would vote to stay out. More than one-fifth of 2016 "Leave" voters would now vote to rejoin, it found.

Rejoining the EU would require the British government to apply under Article 49 of the EU treaties, triggering a process during which London would need to negotiate across 35 different chapters of EU law.

Once agreed, membership must be unanimously approved by existing members of the bloc and then ratified in national parliaments.

The report, led by former UK trade department official Oliver Nicholls, said the combination of the UK's limited regulatory divergence from Brussels since Brexit, its strong market integration and shared values should lead to a much faster process than smaller, less-developed countries.

"Reports that accession would take a decade are wide of the mark," it said. "The example of Finland proves that the process can be far quicker when there is a high degree of existing alignment and strong political will."

Issues likely to be contentious, such as whether the UK should join the euro and the Schengen passport-free travel zone, were solvable, it added, noting that several current member states, including Sweden and Denmark, did not use the single currency.

Ireland, which shares a common travel area with the UK, is outside Schengen and has shown no interest in joining.

Nicholls said: "No country has ever walked this path as a former member, already closely aligned and sharing the EU's values . . . with the political will, Britain could be back at the table within a single parliament."

His view was endorsed by European lawmaker Sandro Gozi, chair of the UK-EU Parliamentary Partnership Assembly, who said London would not begin any rejoining process "from scratch".

"As a former member, and with much of the regulatory framework already in place, I personally do not see any serious reason why an application from the UK would not be achievable within one parliament," the MEP added.

Sir Jonathan Faull, the former senior EU Commission official who acted as Brussels' point person when the UK renegotiated the terms of its EU membership in 2015, welcomed the report as a "sober and useful contribution" to the Brexit debate.

The UK would enter any reaccession talks in a unique position because it bore the "imprint of decades of membership", he said, adding: "The timetable would depend on the clarity and constancy of political will on both sides."

But others are more cautious. In a paper for the European Policy Centre think-tank this year, former MEP Andrew Duff warned that reaccession would take more than one parliament, partly so UK politics could demonstrate that any decision was not at risk of being reversed by a change of government.

"Accession for the UK can be swift but only if the UK is crystal clear that it wants full membership, with no cop-outs or opt-outs," he said.

Even more sceptical was Lord Peter Ricketts, former UK national security adviser and ambassador to France, who said Finland was not a useful comparison.

"My instinct is that it will be a longer process , even if the political will is there. Britain is not Finland; we're a bigger economy. There are those in the EU who will want to weigh the competitive benefits and advantages of having us back," he said.

"There will be big issues over Schengen, Europe and the size of UK contributions to the EU budget. I think it will be a difficult and long line-by-line negotiation because of the scale of the UK economy and what it means to have us back in again."