Good afternoon everyone,
I’m really pleased to be here – and I’m sure Annabel is too, her very first conference, aged just two years old.
To be clear, she wasn’t meant to be here. My wife and I are as bad at communicating as this government appears to be at times, and she swapped into a long hospital shift today without telling me. The babies won’t wait apparently, so she needs to be there – but nor can our relationship with Europe afford to wait, so I need to be here with you too.
So for the next 15 minutes, Julia Donaldson and Axel Scheffler will hopefully keep Annabel entertained. And fittingly, they publicly warned against Brexit back in 2016, saying that without the EU, stories like The Gruffalo might never have existed.
Let me begin by referring to an incredible feat of European engineering that stretches nearly five miles and connects two nations seamlessly. Any ideas?
The Øresund Bridge linking Copenhagen and Malmö, connecting Denmark and Sweden, across nearly five miles of road and rail. Every year, 15 million people and 7 million vehicles cross it.
But here’s the remarkable part: part way across, the bridge disappears under water.
Why? Because the designers had to balance connectivity with shipping lanes, environmental concerns and flight paths into Copenhagen Airport. What they built was not simply a bridge, but a compromise – a structure based on cooperation, pragmatism and mutual benefit.
And it has completely transformed the relationship between Denmark and Sweden. It boosted business, created a shared labour market and turned two separate cities into a connected economic region.
That, perhaps, is the key point about bridges.
They don’t require two sides to become identical. They simply recognise that both sides are stronger when they are connected.
For those who don’t know, I’m the MP for Rushcliffe, which includes West Bridgford and the villages south of Nottingham. It’s known for iconic sports venues, thriving communities and a high quality of life.
Politically, it was known for electing Conservatives for generations – for 54 years until 2024. But it is also known for something else: being the only constituency in the East Midlands to vote to remain in the European Union.
Rushcliffe was an outlier long before Brexit. It is consistently ranked as one of the best, safest and most prosperous places to live in the East Midlands. It has high educational attainment. Low unemployment. High skill levels. Low levels of debt. High levels of opportunity.
And so, in 2016, while the rest of the region voted Leave, perhaps it was no surprise that Rushcliffe voted Remain.
Yet for years afterwards, people who questioned Brexit – many of my constituents – were effectively told to stay quiet.
“The debate is over.” “Brexit means Brexit.” “There’s no going back.”
At times, many of us became reluctant to even discuss our relationship with Europe. We worried about being accused of undermining democracy or reopening old divisions.
For a while, our relationship with Europe became the great unspeakable in British public life – a crisis that took somewhere between four and eight per cent out of our economy, but barely triggered more than a shrug in political and media circles.
But 10 years on from the vote, surely 2026 is precisely the moment for a proper assessment of what Brexit has actually achieved.
And I think the debate is finally changing for four reasons.
First, the economics.
The Office for Budget Responsibility estimated a 15 per cent long-term reduction in UK trade. Exports have fallen because of new barriers, and thousands of smaller businesses have simply stopped exporting to Europe altogether.
Second, Brexit hasn’t solved the problems many people hoped it would.
For example, we were told it would reduce immigration. Instead, Britain lost many EU workers we relied upon – nurses, engineers, agricultural workers and care staff – while migration from elsewhere increased sharply.
Too many communities feel ignored by Westminster and have been left behind by economic change – I understand this. But Brexit did not solve their problems. In many cases, it has made them harder to solve.
Third, geopolitics.
We face an increasingly unstable world: Russian aggression, economic competition from China, political uncertainty in America, climate pressures and energy insecurity to name a few.
No serious country can look at those challenges and conclude that it becomes stronger by standing more alone.
The answer to instability is partnership. And that means rebuilding our relationship with Europe.
And fourth, lived reality.
Ten years on, Brexit is no longer an abstract political argument. People experience its consequences every day, and they don’t like it.
Businesses from Rushcliffe exporting to Europe have told me that they face extra costs and delays that did not previously exist. Universities worry about research partnerships and attracting international talent. Farmers and food producers struggle with labour shortages and bureaucracy.
There have been quieter losses too:
• Students losing opportunities to study.
• Musicians struggling to tour.
• Professionals facing new barriers to working across Europe.
• Families navigating extra bureaucracy.
Together, they add up to something bigger: a country that has become less connected, less dynamic, less confident and, sadly, less effective on the world stage.
Now, let us recognise what the government has already done.
After years of performative hostility toward our nearest neighbours, the change in tone since July 2024 has mattered.
The 2025 UK-EU Summit marked genuine progress: cooperation on defence and security, renewed participation in Horizon, discussions about reducing border friction and stronger coordination on energy.
These things may be technical, but technical decisions shape real lives.
Reducing border checks helps businesses trade. Scientific cooperation helps universities innovate. Energy coordination should ultimately lower costs. Defence cooperation keeps our continent safer.
And importantly, this reflects where the public increasingly is: focused on being pragmatic rather than ideological.
That is why I warmly welcomed the subsequent decision to rejoin Erasmus+. Because Erasmus was never just about student exchanges. It was about opportunity, allowing young people from places like Rushcliffe to broaden their horizons, learn languages and gain experiences that shaped their futures. And it brought young Europeans here too, strengthening our universities and communities.
But the problem for the Labour Party is this: politically, it is nowhere near enough.
For a progressive movement to win and hold power in modern Britain, Europe has to be a much bigger part of the offer.
Public opinion has shifted dramatically, particularly among younger voters who are overwhelmingly pro-European. And it’s clear that nationalism hasn’t delivered what people were promised.
Brexit did not rebuild public services. It did not transform struggling towns. It did not raise UK productivity. It did not reduce migration in the way promised.
Increasingly, voters know this, and without addressing it directly, the danger is that disillusionment turns into something much darker: a belief that democracy itself cannot deliver for the British people.
That is why as progressives, we must offer not simply criticism, but a credible, real and tangible alternative – a politics of cooperation instead of isolation, competence instead of grievance, economic renewal instead of endless culture wars.
And Europe must be central to that project.
Not because Europe is perfect. It is not.
But because climate change clearly doesn’t stop at Dover. Russian aggression doesn’t stop at Calais. Artificial intelligence, energy security, supply chains and defence are all continental challenges.
So we come to the key question: what should happen next?
Some argue Britain should immediately seek to rejoin the European Union.
I understand that instinct. But putting the lengthy accession process to one side, I believe the more credible path right now is rebuilding bridges step by step – but doing so with pace and urgency that the government hasn’t yet shown.
We cannot pretend Brexit never happened: it damaged trust on both sides and left political scars that will take time to heal.
Yet Britain and Europe face the same demographic, economic and geopolitical challenges, so the status quo isn’t helping anyone. A practical path forward is, therefore, one of serious reconstruction: rebuilding trust, restoring cooperation and aligning policy swiftly, knowing that in most cases, it benefits both sides.
For us here in Britain, it means recognising an important truth about sovereignty.
One of the great myths of the Brexit debate was the idea that sovereignty can exist in absolute form. It cannot.
Every trade arrangement involves shared standards. Every security partnership involves obligations. Every international agreement requires some form of compromise.
The real question is whether Britain helps shape the rules that affect us – or simply adapts to decisions made by partners elsewhere.
I believe it should be the former, and therefore want to work toward a deeper, structured partnership with Europe – closer and ideally formal market access in key sectors; practical agreements on mobility; stronger cooperation on energy, research and defence; and reduced barriers to trade.
This is why many of my colleagues in parliament are now talking about a formal Swiss-style arrangement with the EU. Again, not because it is perfect. Not because it can happen overnight. But because Britain’s prosperity and security are tied to the continent we belong to geographically, economically and strategically. We must formally reconstruct bridges by building a relationship that works in the world as it exists today. And if this means reopening the wounds of the 2016 referendum, we should.
And, of course, as I said, this matters politically.
Britain has entered an era of profound voter fragmentation. The anti-Tory coalition that delivered Labour’s 2024 victory has already broken. Support for Reform – the architects of Brexit – is growing across much of the country. And younger, pro-European voters are drifting away from Labour, due to politics that lacks ambition.
Yet there is also a huge opportunity right now, when swings of 2 to 3% could change an election outcome.
So as a pragmatist, my view is that Britain should focus first on realignment rather than rejoining – but this must be urgent, and must offer a level of formality that hasn’t existed to date. And I, therefore, believe that pushing towards bespoke single market membership represents the best version of this.
I believe we can repair and rebuild our relationship with Europe. Our government is showing this. I believe the public is increasingly ready for honesty about Brexit’s consequences. And I believe closer relations with Europe are not only economically sensible, but politically necessary.
Necessary for growth. Necessary for security. Necessary for rebuilding trust in democracy itself.
Rushcliffe understood something in 2016 that the country is gradually rediscovering: that Britain’s future does not lie in retreat from our neighbours.
It lies in partnership with them.
Not because cooperation makes us any less British, but because cooperation is how Britain has always achieved its greatest successes.
Nelson Mandela once said that everything seems impossible until it is done.
That was the spirit of the Leave campaign.
It should now be ours – not driven by grievance, but by optimism: the belief that Britain’s best future is one where we are outward-looking, constructive but also pragmatic within the European family of nations.
Because like the Øresund Bridge, bridges matter.
Bridges connect. Bridges endure. And when the storms come – as they always do, and boy are we experiencing them now – it’s bridges that help to stop us drifting apart.