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  "path": "/2026/04/29/want-uk-back-eu-no-cherry-picking-rules-this-time-top-meps-tell-metro-28165074/",
  "publishedAt": "2026-04-29T14:00:07.000Z",
  "site": "https://metro.co.uk",
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    "Sadiq Khan",
    "Zack Polanski",
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    "Brussels",
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    "Add Metro as a Preferred Source on Google\nAdd as preferred source"
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  "textContent": "MEPs said the UK would be ‘warmly welcomed’ back in the EU – but without any special deals (Picture: EPA)\n\nTop European lawmakers want Brexit Britain back in the EU, but won’t give the UK any special opt-outs to the rules, Metro can reveal.\n\nAfter calls from Sadiq Khan and Zack Polanski for the UK to rejoin the EU, Metro got the views of Europe’s MEPs, who would have a crucial vote on allowing us back inside the bloc.\n\nParty leaders and spokespeople representing a majority of the European Parliament said they would enthusiastically welcome a ‘Breturn’ to the EU.\n\nHowever top lawmakers insisted that they would not allow Britain to ‘cherry-pick’ which rules to follow as a new member, unlike last time around.\n\nThis could mean the UK is forced to adopt the Euro and join the Schengen free movement area if it applied to rejoin the EU.\n\nParty leaders and spokespeople from the EPP, S&D, Renew and Greens, as well as members from across the chamber, said they want the UK back (Picture: National Teams)\n\n##  Want to understand more about how politics affects your life?\n\nMetro's senior politics reporter Craig Munro breaks down all the chaos into easy to follow insight, in **Metro** 's politics newsletter Alright, Gov? Sent every Wednesday. Sign up here.\n\nLeading figures from four of the seven political blocs in the European parliament – representing more than two-thirds of the 720 sitting MEPs – told **Metro** they wanted the UK back in Brussels.\n\nIratxe García, president of the centre-left S&D grouping, said they ‘always believed’ that Brexit was a mistake and that the UK ‘belongs’ in the EU.\n\nThe co-president of the Green bloc said the Brits ‘should absolutely rejoin the EU’ and that their door was ‘always open’.\n\nSean Kelly, the lead UK spokesperson in the largest grouping of MEPs, the EPP, said he ‘would welcome’ us back – a sentiment shared by the centrist Renew group.\n\nDavid McAllister, a German MEP who heads up the Parliament’s Foreign Affairs Committee and UK contact group, called Brexit a ‘historical regret which I deeply regret’.\n\nEven hardline Eurosceptic politicians – such as Irmhild Bossdorf from the far-right Europe for Sovereign Nations group – told **Metro** they wanted the alliance to expand if British voters wanted.\n\nThere were just two politicians, both from the far-right Alternative for Germany Party, who told **Metro** the British made the right call with Brexit.\n\nChristine Anderson said: ‘The British voters made a good decision at the time. I currently see no convincing reason for surrendering British sovereignty to Brussels again.’\n\nThe UK voted to leave the EU 10 years ago in June (Picture: PA)\n\nAny attempt to rejoin the EU would likely spark a huge debate about what rules the UK would have to accept to be let back in.\n\nThe British had used their status to carve crucial opt-outs on controversial parts of European integration – notably the single currency and the Schengen area of open borders.\n\nBut those exceptions don’t apply to new applicants – and EU rules dictate that all members have to adopt the Euro, except Denmark.\n\nTop MEPs and Party leaders in Brussels overwhelmingly made clear they were in no mood to cut the UK any special deals.\n\nSandro Gozi, who chairs the EU delegation to the EU-UK Partnership Assembly, said: ‘There can be no ‘tailor-made’ conditions based on nostalgia for the past.\n\n‘Any future accession must take place in accordance with the Union’s rules’.\n\nTerry Reintke, co-president of the Green bloc of more than 50 MEPs, told **Metro** : ‘There can be no cherry-picking. The integrity of the Union and its common rules must be upheld.’\n\nTwo Vice-Presidents of the European Parliament, Victor Negrescu from the 136-strong S&D bloc and Martin Hojsík from Renew, agreed that ‘any potential return would naturally need to be based on principles and conditions that apply to all member states’.\n\nMr Hojsík insisted: ‘There should be no special arrangements or exceptions.’\n\nTerry Reintke wants a ‘Breturn’ on behalf of the Greens but rejects any suggestion of ‘cherry-picking’ (Picture: Bernd Lauter/Getty Images)\n\nThe EPP’s vice-chair Jeroen Lenaers and UK spokesperson Sean Kelly agreed all the requirements for EU membership needed to be met by the UK.\n\nRihards Kols, a Latvian MEP from the right-wing ECR group, suggested that returning to pre-Brexit rules straight away was ‘wishful thinking’.\n\nHe added: ‘If the UK returns, it returns to the Union that exists today – with the same accession rules that apply to every candidate country.’\n\nThe Green Party, whose leader Zack Polanski has declared his support to rejoin the EU, agreed that ‘the UK cannot expect to cherry-pick the rules’ if they apply for new members.\n\nThe party added: ‘Nigel Farage and his Brexit cronies blew the favourable concessions we had, and they have nothing positive at all to show for their disastrous experiment\n\nTheir statement continued: ‘With public support for rejoining now stronger than ever and many EU politicians keen to see the UK return, the political circumstances are definitely more favourable than at any point since our exit ten years ago.’\n\nOnly 10 of the more than 70 MEPs who shared their views with **Metro** suggested they’d be willing to cut the UK some slack.\n\nGreek MEP Nikos Papandreou said he was against ‘the idea that Great Britain needs to be “punished”‘ because of the referendum.\n\nZack Polanski has led calls for the UK to rejoin the EU (Photo by Guy Smallman/Getty Images)\n\nIrish representative Barry Andrews, chair of the EU Development Committee, agreed that letting the UK back in on pre-Brexit terms would be a ‘win-win for both sides.’\n\nLord Heseltine, former Deputy Prime Minister and arch-Remainer, said: ‘We should never have left the EU. It was a serious act of self harm. We should rejoin at the earliest possible moment and take our place in one of the world’s most powerful political powers.’\n\nThe EU Parliament’s president Roberta Metsola is firmly focused on existing UK-EU relations.\n\nShe told **Metro** : ‘What we want to see is a strong EU-UK partnership that looks to the future and avoids resurrecting the ghosts of the past – this is the right moment to move forward and I am convinced that we can do that in a manner that respects the choice of the British people.’\n\nA spokesperson for the EU Commission said: ‘The UK is our close and valued partner. The UK has chosen to leave the European Union. It was their sovereign decision. Any decision to rejoin the Union rests solely with the UK.’\n\n**_The Cabinet Office was approached for comment._**\n\n******Get in touch with our news team by emailing us atwebnews@metro.co.uk.******\n\n**For more stories like this,** check our news page.\n\nComment now Comments \nAdd Metro as a Preferred Source on Google\nAdd as preferred source\n",
  "title": "We want the UK back in EU but no cherry-picking our rules this time, top MEPs tell Metro"
}