Blair Calls for Britain to Rejoin the EU Within 10 Years
Tony Blair says Britain should work toward rejoining the European Union over the next decade.
The call was reported on 23 September 2026 and was aimed at Labour politics. Blair urged Andy Burnham to use his 10-year plan in November to put EU membership back on the table The Guardian. Burnham declined to rule out a promise to rejoin in the next Labour manifesto, the party's formal set of election pledges.
The case is made in a Tony Blair Institute paper titled A Path to Rejoining a Reformed Europe. The paper says "over the next decade Britain should work towards the ambition of rejoining a significantly reformed EU". It says the UK should accept free movement of people up front, the right to live and work across EU countries, and make a financial contribution, a payment into the EU budget, rather than leaving those issues for later talks.
A YouGov megapoll of more than 13,000 people for Best for Britain found Labour could rise from a projected 136 seats to 321 seats if it promised to rejoin The Guardian. The poll tested a direct manifesto promise to rejoin, not a slower step-by-step alignment. The gap between the two projections is 185 seats.
Former EU Brexit negotiator Michel Barnier said it is 'perfectly possible' the UK could rejoin with its old opt-outs The Guardian. Those opt-outs were special exceptions Britain had before, covering protocol, currency and Justice and Home Affairs rules, including keeping the pound. He did not set out how the Commission, Council and Parliament would sequence an application. That leaves open whether Britain would get the same terms as before or need new agreements.
Blair's stance has shifted over time. In February 2017, he called on Remain supporters to 'rise up in defence of our beliefs' to persuade the UK to stay in the EU The Guardian. He later urged the EU to change its freedom of movement rules in an effort to halt Brexit. He then said the UK should "make the best" of Brexit and that the time was not right to push to rejoin. The current paper returns to rejoin as a stated goal, tied to a reformed EU and a 10-year timeline.
Looking at what this means for Westminster and Brussels, a clear rejoin pledge would test voter coalitions, party discipline and negotiating leverage at once. Accepting free movement and budget payments could make the first EU response simpler but make approval at home harder. Calling for a reformed EU gives London room to seek institutional change, yet any EU reform needs agreement from all member states.
The broader context here is timing and leverage. A reference in the November 10-year plan would open debate without locking in manifesto wording. Large-scale polling can shift calculations inside Labour, but accession still follows Article 49, the EU treaty rule for joining, which requires unanimous Council approval and consent from the European Parliament. In my view, the key question is not whether rejoin appears as a word in manifestos, but whether Labour pairs it with acceptance of the acquis, the full body of EU law, plus free movement and budget terms that Brussels would require before talks begin.
