Come back to the EU any time, French minister tells Britain
French finance minister Roland Lescure has invited Britain to come 'all the way' back into the EU in a BBC interview, as Andy Burnham holds security talks in Berlin.
France’s finance minister has invited Britain to come “all the way” back into the European Union.
Roland Lescure told BBC economics editor Faisal Islam the UK would be pushing at an open door, and that Britain was welcome back “any time”, according to The Times. Asked whether Britain would be kept out of the EU’s “Made in Europe” industrial scheme, designed to help European manufacturers compete with subsidised Chinese imports, he replied: “Come back, and you’ll be at the table, and we discuss all these things together.”
He said he wanted Britain back in the union to face emerging global threats together, adding: “[The] British people decided [to leave], and that’s obviously their 100 per cent right, and if they’re willing to come back, they will have to decide. But what I can tell them is: come back, any time.”
Burnham said at the Labour conference that Brexit had done “more harm than good”, pledging to set out options — staying as-is, a customs union, the single market or going “all the way” — around the UK-EU summit later this year. He has since told the BBC a second in-out referendum in a future Labour manifesto is “possible”.
The invitation came as Burnham made his first official visit to Germany for security talks with Chancellor Friedrich Merz, focused on Russian hybrid threats — including last month’s explosive-drone incident at Leipzig/Halle airport — ahead of formal ratification of the Kensington Treaty (The Star).
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