‘You’ve got to be joking’: Mandelson dismisses prospect of UK rejoining EU

Peter Mandelson has dismissed the prospect of an incoming Labour government taking Britain back into the EU, saying “you’ve got to be joking” that Brussels would want to renegotiate the UK’s membership.

The Labour peer, a former EU trade commissioner and close adviser to Keir Starmer, said rejoining the 27-country bloc would require a referendum that UK voters had little desire for, after the Conservatives’ botched handling of Brexit.

Martha Lane Fox, the tech entrepreneur and president of the BCC, said there was often a reluctance among politicians to either recognise problems or suggest solutions because of how they may be viewed either side of the Brexit divide.

Mandelson said Brexit had triggered a “rollercoaster ride of instability, a merry-go-round of changing ministers” that had left the British economy “travelling along with one arm behind our backs”.

Trump, who launched a series of increasingly bitter trade battles with the US’s traditional allies and adversaries alike during his time in the White House, has said that if he is elected in November then he will impose 10% tariffs on all goods imported into the US.

Mandelson said the measure could push the UK to “join with others to maximise the influence that we exercise” including in the EU and other G7 nations, while also suggesting that action was required to strengthen the World Trade Organization.