How does the UK rejoin the EU? Have a listen to David Miliband on BBC Radio 4 Today: Anna Foster, "The front page of the Guardian this morning is talking about the government trying to pitch an EU single market for goods, which Brussels seems to not be particularly keen on. What is your position on the government's stance at the moment on Europe and how our ongoing relationship with Europe should look?" David Miliband, "Well, I'm convinced that the security and prosperity of the UK depends on an institutionalized, deep and strong relationship with the rest of Europe. I'm absolutely convinced of that. The Russian invasion of Ukraine shows the way in which that's our number one security threat now." David Miliband, "But, we know our economy has been shrunk by 6 to 8% in the 10 years since Brexit. So there's an economic part of that. So when the government says we want a reset of our relations with Europe, I think that's a good thing. But then when I look that the reset so far is only worth £9 billion by 2040 and I remember that Britain is a 3 trillion pound economy, I'm left saying, no, we need a much higher dosage in our reset." Anna Foster, "How high? I mean, do you advocate for rejoining the EU?" David Miliband, "Well, I'm somewhat bemused by some of the commentary. I want this strong institutional relationship with the European Union. But then I know the deal we had until 2016 is not available now. We're not going to be able to get that deal again." David Miliband, "I also know the European Union is changing profoundly. The big issue for Brussels today is not Britain joining, it's Ukraine joining and Ukraine joining the European Union is going to mean a different institutional set of arrangements inside Europe." David Miliband, "So just to give you an example, they're talking about associate membership for Ukraine, they're talking about different tiers of membership. So the question of what kind of docking are we going to do in with the European Union? It's the re part of rejoin that I think we have to understand." David Miliband, "The world is changing out there." Anna Foster, "So you're not necessarily against the concept, but what you're saying is it would never be the way it was and therefore you don't think it's the right thing." David Miliband, "For that reason, it literally can't be the way that it was. We're not in a position to, I mean, the European Union wouldn't entertain us flipping and flopping. What we have to do is build a national consensus about our position with the European Union. I'm very happy with it as a long term goal." David Miliband, "Think for this Parliament we should be really driving our economic, political and other relations. There's a big debate about defence spending going on. As we know it's affected the aid budget. There's something called the European Defence Mechanism, which is the proposal for a European backed 800 billion euro defence package that would support all European countries inside the European Union and outside." David Miliband, "We should be championing that. That would be us putting in for a mutual security funding arrangement that would help fund our own defence and European defence. Because the truth is our defence is Europe's defence and vice versa."
