Is Britain ever likely to rejoin the EU single market?

Senior Tory MP Tobias Ellwood has raised eyebrows by calling for a Norway-style economic alignment with Europe. Adam Forrest takes a closer at whether the dream can be delivered

There have been calls for the UK to take up a Norway-style economic alignment with Europe (EPA)

Europhiles were given something to cheer about heading into the long jubilee holiday when senior Conservative MP Tobias Ellwood made a surprising call for Britain to rejoin the EU single market.

All but the most ardent of blue and gold flag-waving Remainers had given up hope on Britain ever making a significant return to the bloc’s institutions.

The Tory party forced out all of its Brussels sympathisers during the parliamentary Brexit wars of 2016 to 2019. Labour, wounded by losing so many of those battles, has given up on even talking about it.

It makes Ellwood’s intervention all the more strange. An outspoken critic of Boris Johnson believed to hold leadership ambitions, he appears unlikely to win many friends on the back benches with his bold new stance.

But his proposal to ape Norway-style arrangements inside the EU single market as a member of the European Economic Area (EEA) is, on paper, sensible. It was even a mainstream Tory view in the aftermath of the Brexit referendum.

Ellwood has argued that the ongoing damage being done to British businesses in the aftermath of our hard-ish Brexit means single market access should become the mainstream view once again.

However unlikely Ellwood’s dream of frictionless trade, might we see a new conversation about Britain’s future relationship with Europe?

Probably not. At least, probably not for a while. The ruling Tory party, government departments and British industry are all still focused on trying to adjust to the implications of the complex deals agreed in 2019 and 2020.

More importantly, a significant chunk of the electorate who voted to quit the EU are not yet ready to hear that it’s all gone wrong.

It will take a much longer period of time for a large proportion of Leave voters to get used to the idea that Brexit could be “upgraded” and “maximised”, to use Ellwood’s terms, through another huge constitutional change.

Would there have to be another referendum on single market membership? If so, would membership of the EU be on the ballot? What could bring about the huge shift in mood needed for another historic vote?

More general elections may help. New governments and new prime ministers coming and going will make the 2016-19 period ancient history not so very long from now.

Strangely, a resolution to the Northern Ireland protocol row, if it ever comes, may also help the public focus on the bigger picture and ask whether Brexit arrangements are working economically for the UK as a whole.

Rejoining the single market doesn’t happen easily and it remains very hard to imagine it happening for at least a decade. But a long-term shift back towards closer economic alignment is not so far-fetched.

In the aftermath of the Brexit and Scottish independence referendums, we heard a lot about the settled will of the people. But there is no such thing. No form of change is impossible, least of all in these unsettled, uneasy islands.