MEPs from across the political divide have called for the proclaimed EU–UK “reset” to be “decisively accelerated”.

Their demands are timed to coincide with a landmark anniversary: it is ten years since the United Kingdom’s decision to leave the European Union.

The president of the European Parliament, Roberta Metsola, a centre right MEP from Malta, was in London recently for a high profile visit where EU-UK relations were discussed.

The world of 2026 is very different from the world of 2016, when the UK voted for Brexit and it is argued by some that neither the UK nor EU seems to appreciate the scale of the changes, however.

The “reset,” initiated by the Labour government after July 2024, is widely seen as deepening ties between the two sides.

One aim, it is said, is to reduce post-Brexit trade barriers without returning to the single market, customs union, or freedom of movement.

An important focus on any reset is in areas such as a veterinary agreement, security cooperation and youth mobility.

The UK and EU have, in recent times, moved to restore some ties, such as Britain re-joining the Erasmus student exchange scheme and also the Horizon research programme, both flagship EU initiatives.

French MEP Sandro Gozi,Co-Chair of the EU–UK Parliamentary Partnership Assembly, now wants such efforts to be intensified.

The Renew Europe member said, “Brexit meant Brexit, but ten years is a long time in politics and the geopolitical landscape has changed beyond recognition. It is time for the UK Government to recognize that the EU is Britain’s closest ally and its strongest partner for sustainable economic growth in this new world order.

“Progress has been too slow. The EU–UK reset must now be supercharged. Engagement, based on respect of the Union’s principles, should be broadened and accelerated ahead of this summer’s EU–UK Summit.”

His comments are partly echoed by Irish MEP Barry Cowen, a member of the European Parliament’s delegation for relations with the UK and shadow rapporteur on the Parliament’s recent report on the implementation of the EU – UK TCA.

Cowen, also a Renew Europe deputy, said, “We would like to see a reset from the UK that is commensurate with the scale of the challenges we face as Europeans. Ireland, Europe and the UK stand to benefit from greater ambition and from reducing trade barriers that remain unnecessarily high.

“Ten years after the Brexit decision, British people now want a closer relationship, so it is time to supercharge the reset.”

This website canvassed opinion from some senior former British MEPs for their opinion on how relations between the EU and UK should or might evolve.

Former European Parliament Vice-President Edward McMillan-Scott said that recent polling by YouGov showed that 54 % of Britons surveyed wanted a closer relationship with the EU against 34 % opposed.

He said, “And, remember, this is against a background that 58% say Britain was wrong to leave the EU against 30% disagreeing.”

Ex-Irish MEP Pat Cox is, as a former president of the European Parliament, was a familiar political figure on the EU stage.

He says: “There has been a dramatic change on geopolitical realities since Brexit. To quote Keynes “When the facts change, I change my mind… 

“The time has come to confront the new realities and act accordingly.”

Further comment came from Lord (Richard) Balfe who told this site, “If one of our political parties is prepared at the next election to endorse another Referendum to reverse the 2016 Vote they will get a huge amount of support from the sort of middle England that lives around Cambridge where I live and he rest of the Home Counties.”

If his call is met ex-Liberal Democrat MEP Balfe, a member of the UK House of Lords, said, “they could once again make the Lib/Dems the party of aspirant Middle England and the main opposition.”

Also commenting, former UK Europe Minister Denis MacShane told this site that, “The shocking news that Britain now has the highest level of youth unemployment in Europe and UK growth is well below that of Spain or Poland  surely shows the time has come for some stronger leadership from both sides.

“Right now London and Brussels look like two elephants side by side in the same bed but with no idea how to have sex.”

MacShane, who was a  government minister under Tony Blair, said, “Every opinion poll in the UK shows that a growing majority now see the Boris Johnson-Nigel Farage Brexit adventure to have been a disastrous wrong turning for the UK. Sir Keir Starmer is famous for being an ultra cautious one step at a time lawyer. But in politics lawyerly caution at time needs to be replaced by leadership.”

Meanwhile, a new joint paper by the Centre for European Reform and the Konrad-Adenauer-Stiftung UK and Ireland asks:  “EU-UK relations: will 2026 be the year to reset the reset?”

It concludes by saying the EU and UK need a “fundamental rethink of how they can enhance their security and prosperity.”

The author of the paper, Ian Bond, said “Since the UK voted for Brexit, Europeans have had to deal with Russia’s war against Ukraine, Donald Trump’s aggressive trade policy and his threats to annex Greenland, and China’s willingness to use its near-monopoly on the supply of critical minerals to put pressure on other countries. In turbulent times, the EU and the UK would both benefit from overcoming the lack of trust that the Brexit process engendered.”

Bond, deputy director of Brussels-based Centre for European Reform, adds, “They should work together in pursuit of shared economic and security interests, including increasing European strategic autonomy”.

The Centre for European Reform and Konrad-Adenauer-Stiftung UK policy brief is based on a detailed assessment of progress in implementing steps towards a closer relationship that were agreed at the first ever EU-UK summit meeting in May 2025.

The paper says that the Labour government that took office in the UK in July 2024 proclaimed a reset in relations with the EU. At the May 2025 summit meeting, European Commission president Ursula von der Leyen described the EU and UK as “historical and natural partners standing side by side on the global stage, facing the same challenges, pursuing the same objectives, like-minded, sharing the same values”.

But eight months after the meeting, there is, says the paper, a sense of lost momentum on both sides.

“Some of the reduced impetus was down to the British government’s continued reluctance for much of 2025 to confront eurosceptics in the media and the political opposition. Labour in 2025 remained disappointingly willing to tolerate the well-documented economic damage caused by being outside the EU,” it says.

It goes on: “The EU must also take a share of the blame.

“There is still a sense among EU officials and member-states that the UK should be made to pay a price for Brexit. 

“The two sides failed to agree on terms for the UK’s participation in the EU’s Security Action for Europe programme – designed to promote joint procurement of much-needed weapons and munitions for European defence – after the EU demanded a huge up-front payment from the UK.”