Chancellor Rachel Reeves’ recent Mais lecture on Tuesday marked a pivotal moment in Labour’s evolving stance on Brexit, explicitly stating that “Brexit did deep damage.” This declaration, coupled with her insistence that “this government believes a deeper relationship is in the interest of the whole of Europe,” signals a significant shift within the party, a move that government ministers have been quietly telegraphing for some time. While Reeves maintained that the government was not attempting to “turn back the clock” on Brexit, her remarks underscore a growing ambition to reset the UK’s post-Brexit relationship with the EU, driven by the imperative to address the country’s persistently sluggish economic performance.
The economic backdrop to this recalibration is stark. The UK economy grew by 1.3% in 2025, an improvement on the 1.1% growth in 2024, yet still falling short of official forecasts of 1.5%. This underperformance has intensified pressure on the government to find new avenues for growth, leading to a more assertive approach to EU relations. Labour’s 2024 election manifesto had proposed some renegotiation of the Trade and Co-operation Agreement (TCA), specifically aiming to end EU customs checks on food and agricultural exports by aligning British regulations with those of the EU. However, it also drew firm red lines: no return to the single market, the customs union, or freedom of movement, with no suggestion of rejoining the EU.
This cautious stance was a direct consequence of Labour’s heavy defeat in the 2019 election. Following that electoral calamity, the party accepted the decision to leave the EU and voted for Boris Johnson’s TCA. The strategy was to reconnect with working-class voters who had traditionally supported Labour but had backed Leave in 2016 and then Boris Johnson’s “get Brexit done” message in 2019, leading to the collapse of the “Red Wall” of once-safe Labour seats.
An Evolving Rhetoric
However, the party’s tone has demonstrably shifted since the 2024 election. Shortly after last autumn’s Budget, Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer declared that “Brexit had significantly hurt our economy” and that Britain needed to “keep moving towards a close relationship with the EU.” While the manifesto’s red lines were ostensibly intact, his speech suggested a growing conviction within Labour that a more ambitious approach to the reset was necessary for economic recovery.
Other senior figures have echoed, and in some cases, amplified this sentiment. Health Secretary Wes Streeting, speaking at a literary festival in October, stated, “I’m glad that Brexit is a problem whose name we now dare speak,” indicating his belief that being outside the EU was impeding economic growth. Deputy Prime Minister David Lammy noted in a podcast that Brexit’s economic damage was “self-evident,” drawing parallels with Turkey’s economic benefits from its customs agreement with the EU. Further evidence of internal pressure came on Wednesday when London Mayor Sadiq Khan called for the UK to rejoin the EU customs union and single market before the next election, and then campaign on a promise to rejoin the EU.
While Chancellor Reeves, in her Mais lecture, stressed that the red lines from Labour’s manifesto still stand, she clearly signalled a desire for the government to align the UK’s regulatory regime with that of the EU in more areas, wherever it was in Britain’s interest. Such a step, she suggested, was crucial for delivering the economic growth Labour promised in the 2024 election campaign but which has largely eluded it.
The Shifting Electoral Calculus
These policy adjustments are not merely economic; they carry significant political implications, as highlighted by Sir John Curtice, Professor of politics at the University of Strathclyde. The crucial question is whether pursuing a closer EU relationship risks alienating Brexit-backing voters or if the political landscape has fundamentally shifted, making such a change in tack politically astute for Labour.
Despite winning the 2024 election, Labour made relatively little progress in reconnecting with working-class Leave voters between 2019 and 2024. Data from the British Election Study and the National Centre for Social Research indicate that 80% of Labour’s support in 2024 came from people who favoured rejoining the EU, only slightly down from 86% in 2019. The party was more successful in winning over 2019 Tory voters who backed rejoining the EU than those who wanted to stay out. Furthermore, Labour’s advance among working-class voters was no stronger than among middle-class voters.
Now, nearly two years post-election, Labour faces even more serious electoral challenges. Recent polls put the party’s standing at just 19%, trailing Reform by eight points. While Reform’s support largely comes from Brexit backers, and one in ten 2024 Labour voters now support Nigel Farage’s party, Reform’s rise is not the primary source of Labour’s current electoral difficulties. For every voter who has switched from Labour to Reform since 2024, almost twice as many (19%) have moved to the resurgent Greens, and another 8% have defected to the Liberal Democrats.
Crucially, while those switching to Reform are almost exclusively Leave voters, the majority of those moving to the Greens or Liberal Democrats are rejoiners. Consequently, Labour’s vote has fallen by nine points among Leave voters since 2024, but by a significant 19 points among Remain voters. This data makes it clear: Labour cannot restore its electoral fortunes solely by appealing to Brexit-backing Reform voters. The party must also win back pro-EU minded voters who have defected to parties advocating for an eventual reversal of Brexit.
Labour Voter Sentiment
Labour’s previous Brexit strategy, aiming for a reset without rejoining, was presumably designed to satisfy pro-EU supporters without alienating its minority of Brexiteers. A YouGov poll from last June showed 76% of 2024 Labour voters supported “Britain having a closer relationship with the European Union, without rejoining the European Union, the Single Market, or the Customs Union,” with only 11% opposed. However, this does not mean the reset approach is more popular than a more radical step. The same poll found 82% of Labour voters supported “Britain rejoining the European Union,” with just 12% against. More recently, in December, YouGov reported that 73% of 2024 Labour voters supported “starting negotiations for Britain to rejoin the European Union,” with 18% opposed.
The popularity of specific elements of Labour’s reset strategy also varies. The core proposal of eliminating customs checks on food and agricultural exports initially appears popular, with 63% of 2024 Labour voters supporting a “veterinary agreement to remove paperwork required on food and drink exports” in a BMG poll last January, against 10% opposed. However, as Redfield & Wilton demonstrated in a poll from the same month, much depends on how the question is framed and whether voters are presented with the relevant trade-offs, yielding a very different result when choices like following EU laws for food sold in Britain to avoid border checks were presented.
The analysis by Sir John Curtice highlights that Labour’s shift is not merely rhetorical but a strategic response to a changing electoral landscape and persistent economic challenges. The party’s focus has fundamentally moved from placating Leave voters to actively courting the pro-EU segment of the electorate, whose defection to other parties now poses a more immediate threat to Labour’s political stability.
