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Before anyone gets too excited, this is from 2025. It's a statement from a Mayor of Manchester trying to raise his political profile, not a statement from a pri

• dofm 2mo ago
  Indeed. Even in that speech he contextualises it as a long-term goal. Plus, what he thinks and what is possible are different things, and he absolutely knows it. We will, I believe, not rejoin the EU while it is in its current form, because leaving closed us off to the bespoke deal we had before; that deal mattered and was the thing that made our relationship with the EU functional. We will now suffer as a result of the hubris of idiots for generations; it's unavoidable, and it compounds almost every problem we have. There is, however, reason not to talk a lot about rejoining for the next two years, because two of our biggest economic threats are Hormuz and Trump; the former can only be addressed as part of a global coalition now, and the latter can only be addressed by playing directly to his narcissism with royal visits and very bespoke strategy. Trump plays the EU by trying to divide it anyway.