Britain Cannot Handle Geopolitical Crises Without Rejoining EU, IPPR Says
Labour-linked IPPR paper says sovereignty needs the ability to act, and cites polling showing 52% of voters back re-entry
By AXY Politics Desk ·
Key points
- The IPPR, a thinktank with ties to Labour, says Britain cannot handle crises such as Russian aggression without rejoining the EU.
- The paper argues that closer ties without single market or full membership leave the UK at a disadvantage, and that a return would mean joining a wholly new union.
- Polling cited in the paper shows 52% of voters back re-entry compared with 29% who oppose it, though the methodology is not detailed in the source.
- The proposal adds to pressure on the current prime minister to decide once a government review is over, and the IPPR says no immediate referendum is proposed.
The Institute for Public Policy Research (IPPR), a thinktank with ties to the Labour party, has said Britain cannot deal effectively with geopolitical crises, such as Russian aggression and political turmoil in the United States, without rejoining the European Union. In a paper published on 19 October 2026 and reported by The Guardian, the IPPR argues that “sovereignty without the ability to act on it is not autonomy.” The organisation is the latest Labour-linked body to call for the UK to re-enter the bloc, coming after Andy Burnham said he wanted to examine all possible options on Britain’s relationship with Europe.
What the IPPR paper argues
Harry Quilter-Pinner, the IPPR’s executive director, said the government had made important progress in repairing relations with Europe, but that a series of individual deals would not be enough. Individual deals means separate agreements on particular areas of trade or cooperation, rather than a single overarching framework. “There is one option which is best for the UK’s relationship with Europe – membership of the EU,” he said.
Quilter-Pinner was careful to separate the destination from the timetable. “That does not mean announcing another referendum tomorrow,” he said. “But this means starting work to move towards this destination, building political support at home and in Europe.” In other words, the paper is asking for a process to begin now, even if a vote would come much later.
The IPPR’s argument goes further than many earlier proposals for closer ties. It contends that the position taken by the former prime minister Keir Starmer, that the UK should seek closer ties with the EU but not contemplate joining the single market or the bloc as a whole, puts the country at a disadvantage at a time of global change. The paper’s central line is blunt: “Sovereignty without the ability to act on it is not autonomy; hedging between larger powers is, at best, a strategy for survival rather than for success.”
Sovereignty here means the power of a country to make its own decisions and laws. Autonomy means the ability to act independently in practice. Hedging means keeping options open by avoiding firm commitments to any single power. The IPPR’s point is that a country can formally hold sovereignty and still lack real influence if it cannot shape the rules and events around it.
The paper also argues that so much has changed since Britain left the EU in 2020 that a return would not be a simple rejoining. According to the IPPR, it would instead mean becoming a member of a wholly new European Union. That framing matters, because it suggests the terms of any future membership would differ from the arrangement Britain walked away from.
How Britain reached this point
The current debate grows out of the 2016 referendum, in which a narrow majority of voters chose to leave the EU. The UK formally left the bloc on 31 January 2020 and then entered a transition period that ended on 31 December 2020. A trade and cooperation agreement set the terms of the new relationship from 1 January 2021.
Under that settlement, the UK left the EU’s single market, a shared set of rules that allows goods, services, capital and people to move across member states with limited barriers. It also left the customs union, which applies common tariffs on goods imported from outside the bloc. Leaving both meant new paperwork, checks and costs for many businesses trading across the Channel, and those frictions have been a recurring theme in British politics since.
Supporters of Brexit argued that leaving would restore control over borders, laws and trade policy, and that Britain could strike its own deals with other countries. Critics argued that new customs procedures and reduced access to European markets would weigh on businesses and investment. Successive governments have tried to reduce the friction through negotiated arrangements rather than full membership, and the current government has pursued a wider repair of relations with Brussels.
The IPPR’s paper belongs to this history. Its position is that the middle path, close cooperation without membership of the single market or the customs union, has not delivered the strategic weight Britain needs. Whether the government accepts that assessment is now the central question in the debate.
Labour, the Blair institute and political pressure
The IPPR paper follows a similar paper from the Tony Blair Institute, published weeks earlier. The Tony Blair Institute is associated with the former Labour prime minister Tony Blair. Together, the two papers add to growing pressure on the current prime minister to back re-entry once a government review is over. The source material does not set out the scope or timetable of that review, so it is not yet clear what form any decision would take or when it would be made.
The pressure is politically sensitive because a formal move back into the EU would be one of the largest constitutional and economic decisions a British government could take. Any application to rejoin would involve negotiations on terms, and the question of whether the public would be asked to vote would be central. The IPPR explicitly says it does not propose a referendum immediately, but analysts expect the sequencing of these steps to become a key point of debate within both main parties and across the wider public.
The involvement of organisations with ties to Labour is also significant in its own right. Thinktanks can shape the policy options that politicians consider, and papers like this one can help move an idea from the margins of debate into mainstream discussion. The fact that Andy Burnham has said he wants to examine all possible options suggests the question is being taken seriously inside the party, though the source material does not describe the outcome of any internal discussion.
Security, the United States and China
The IPPR’s strongest argument concerns security. It points to Russian expansionism, what it describes as the lack of reliability of the United States as an international partner, and increased assertiveness from Beijing. In its view, Britain should reinforce its power by joining other European nations rather than trying to go it alone.
It is worth distinguishing between two European institutions. The EU is an economic and political union of 27 member states, and its influence rests heavily on trade, regulation and coordinated policy. NATO, the transatlantic defence alliance, includes the UK and most EU members, but it is a separate organisation with its own structures. The IPPR’s argument concerns the EU specifically, so its case rests on the idea that economic weight, regulatory influence and political coordination would make Britain stronger when dealing with large powers.
Critics of this approach would likely argue that Britain already cooperates closely with European partners on security through NATO and through bilateral channels, and that EU membership is not the only route to influence. Those counter-arguments are not addressed in the source material, but they are central to any serious assessment of the proposal. Analysts would also be likely to ask how a closer economic relationship would affect Britain’s independent trade policy, which was one of the core reasons for leaving the bloc.
Public opinion and what voters might gain
The paper cites new polling showing 52% of voters would back re-entering the union, compared with 29% who oppose such a move. The source material does not give further details on the polling methodology, including how the questions were worded or who was surveyed, so these figures should be read as the IPPR’s reported findings rather than an independent measure. The gap between the two figures is wide, but polling results depend heavily on question design, and the paper’s authors have an interest in the outcome they are describing.
The paper also suggests that the benefits voters most associate with membership are not primarily economic. According to the paper, shorter queues at passport control came out considerably ahead of economic benefits and the chance to live and work in the EU as potential attractions of membership. That finding highlights how practical, everyday issues for travellers can shape public attitudes, even in a debate often framed around sovereignty, trade and security.
For readers, that detail is a useful reminder that public support for major policy change often rests on concrete experiences such as travel, jobs and prices. Whether such considerations would outweigh concerns about sovereignty and border control is a question the polling cited in the paper does not answer.
What to watch next
The first thing to watch is the outcome of the government’s review and whether the current prime minister endorses any move toward membership. Until then, the IPPR and Tony Blair Institute papers remain proposals from outside government. Watch also for how Andy Burnham and other Labour figures respond, because their positions could shape the internal party debate and the political climate for any future decision.
Second, watch how the EU responds. Any move toward membership would depend on the views of the other member states as well as on the terms Britain could negotiate. The IPPR’s description of a wholly new union suggests that its authors expect the terms to differ from the arrangement Britain left in 2020, and that would require agreement from partners that have their own domestic politics to manage.
Finally, watch the sequencing of decisions. The IPPR says it does not propose an immediate referendum, but building political and public support would take time. For ordinary readers, the key question is whether the debate moves from thinktank papers to formal government policy, and what that would mean for travel, trade, jobs and security in the years ahead. Until a decision is made, the proposal remains an argument about the future rather than a change to the rules that currently apply.
Questions and answers
What did the IPPR say about Britain and the EU?
The Institute for Public Policy Research said Britain cannot deal effectively with geopolitical crises such as Russian aggression and political turmoil in the US without rejoining the European Union. It argued that a series of individual deals would not be enough.
Does the IPPR want an immediate referendum on rejoining the EU?
No. The IPPR said rejoining did not mean announcing another referendum tomorrow, but would mean starting work to move toward membership and building political support at home and in Europe.
What polling did the IPPR cite on EU membership?
The paper cited new polling showing 52% of voters back reentering the union, compared with 29% who oppose such a move. The source material does not give further methodological details.
What happens next for the UK and the EU?
The current prime minister is under growing pressure to back re-entry once a government review is over. The outcome of that review, and the responses from Labour figures and EU member states, will shape what happens next.
Topics: Institute for Public Policy Research, Brexit, European Union, UK politics, Labour party, Andy Burnham, Keir Starmer, Russia
Sources: The Guardian Politics