EU immigration offer could lead to Brexit reversal

LONDON - 11 September 2017: The decision of the British people to leave the European Union could be reversed next year if France and Germany agree that the UK can take control over immigration while staying in the EU single market, the former Labor cabinet minister Lord Adonis said on Sunday.

With concern over the government’s handling of Brexit growing ahead of a key parliamentary vote on Monday, the peer said Angela Merkel, who is expected to be re-elected as German chancellor later this month, and French president Emmanuel Macron could well make such an offer if they believe it could mean the UK remaining in the EU, Adonis wrote in the Observer.

Adonis said he believes a majority of peers in the House of Lords will support an amendment to the EU withdrawal bill – now passing through the Commons – requiring another referendum before Brexit takes effect, with the options being to accept the deal on offer, or stay in the EU.

Such an amendment for another national vote, Adonis said, would stand a good chance of being passed by the House of Commons because Labor would by then have reason to support it, and sufficient pro-EU Tories would also rally behind it, he argues.

“The interplay between a referendum and such a Merkel-Macron ‘offer’ will be vital,” he writes. “If it is clear by next summer that Britain is going to hold a referendum, then the incentive for them to make a bold offer greatly increases.”

“If Chancellor Merkel and President Macron make an offer, probably over the heads of the British government, for the UK to stay in the economic institutions of the EU but with national control over immigration, then I believe the referendum can be won,” he added.

“Why might Macron and Merkel make this offer? Partly because – in Macron’s case – he (rightly) doesn’t believe that unrestricted free movement of labor is integral to the single market. Partly because many other EU leaders agree with him. And partly for the big strategic reason – which weighs on strategic thinkers in Berlin – that, if Britain leaves the EU, 80% of Nato resources will then be outside the EU, which is hardly a recipe for European security and stability.”