European Greens urge EU leaders to back UK's potential return to bloc

The European Greens on Thursday called on European leaders to support the UK's potential return to the EU, saying there was new momentum behind the idea.

“Britain’s place is in the European Union. Our shared prosperity and security rely on it,” Ciaran Cuffe, co-chair of the European Green Party, said in a statement.

He said that if Europe was serious about “peace, security, and autonomy,” the EU should expand both eastward and westward.

The European Greens said leaders of European Green parties agreed in May that they would be ready to welcome the UK back if British people chose to return to the EU in the future.

Cuffe said the possibility of Britain rejoining the EU was now being “discussed openly at the highest level of British politics.”

He said the idea had been received positively by Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez and French President Emmanuel Macron.

“We now hope that all the European political families and governments that support the UK’s eventual return to the European Union will make their position equally clear,” he said.

The European Greens also linked a potential UK return to the EU with the issue of Irish unity.

Cuffe said rejoining the EU would help “move further along the road to Irish unity,” arguing that there would be no need for an “Irish Sea Border.”

He said this would eliminate the need for customs checks between the UK and Ireland and mean that all parts of Ireland and the UK would be subject to the same EU regulatory controls on trade.

The European Greens said they were the first European political family to explicitly invite the UK to rejoin the EU, making the call in a declaration by the Green Leadership Council in May 2026.

British Prime Minister Andy Burnham said Wednesday that he wanted to see Britain rejoin the EU during his lifetime, while stressing that rejoining was not necessarily the option that should be pursued now.

Speaking at the annual Labour Party Conference in Liverpool, Burnham said Britain could not have “the clear path we need into the rest of this century” without deciding on its future relationship with the EU, which he described as “still our largest market.”

The UK left the EU in 2020, four years after a referendum in which about 52% of voters chose to leave.

Burnham said he would use the opportunity around the summit to set out the choices available to Britain.

“And there are different options, and I will see if we can find consensus around one, which will give us clarity about our position and the future of the continent that we live in,” he said.