Ed Davey’s call for Labour to drop its ‘torpor and timidity’ and rejoin the single market is welcome and shows the EU’s one consistent supporter in UK politics, the Lib Dems (and the Liberals before them).

The first thing to say is that his statement puts paid to all those ideas about Lib Dems having no policies (beyond mending the local church roof, of course) while other parties at least make it clear where they stand. Really? Is that how Starmer’s Labour Party behaves? Ed Davey is right to say that the Labour Party’s talk of a ‘reset’ just seems like a more polite ‘No’ than the Conservatives managed. But rejoining the single market is clear.

Secondly, rejoining the single market is not rejoining the EU. It was one of the options – often it was called the ‘Norway option’ – that was considered after the UK voted to leave the EU in 2016. The referendum never mentioned what arrangement with the EU the UK should adopt after leaving – that was part of the mess Farage left us with.

Norway was one of the countries that had a referendum on entering the EEC (as it was then) in 1973, alongside Denmark and Ireland. The UK entered without a referendum but then in 1975 voted in a referendum to stay in. But Norway voted in 1973 not to join the EU. Their reasons had a lot to do with concerns about the Common Agricultural Policy and (perhaps more important) Common Fisheries Policy – they have 2,000 miles of coastline to protect. These are probably the two policies that the UK had the most concerns about during its time inside the EU, and they don’t apply to Norway as a member of the EEA (European Economic Area). Agriculture and fisheries are completely excluded from the core EEA agreement. Because Norway is a single market member through the EEA, its farmers and fishermen remain outside of both EU policies. The UK can do the same thing if it rejoins the single market as a member of the EEA.

Thirdly, returning to the single market would mean paying money into the EU budget and being bound by decisions of the European Court of Justice on trade matters. But that is hardly a big surprise. If you’re part of a trading bloc with all the advantages of being able to negotiate trade agreements as part of a half-million strong grouping, then it makes sense to have a common policy when making those agreements. Yes, Reform will scream about money going to Brussels again, as they did on the side of their battle bus in 2016, but we will have far more to gain financially than we lose through paying our membership fee. For the medium term, this is certainly part of the answer to Jamie Dalzell’s question in Lib Dem Voice about how we will find the money to pay for important programmes like social care and strengthening defence.

Fourthly, the point about immigration. Yes, the UK will return to the free movement of people from countries within the EEA (essentially the EU plus Norway, Iceland, Switzerland and Liechtenstein). And yes, you can be sure that Reform will present the return to the single market as opening the floodgates to more arrivals from elsewhere in the EEA (Viking invasion?) In fact, net migration was down considerably in the last year (2024-5) for which records exist, and the ONS (Office for National Statistics) makes clear that most of the arrivals were from outside the EU. More EU nationals left the UK than arrived. Moreover, the issue that the public are most concerned about is those seeking asylum, and they do not come from the EEA. Under EU Law, EEA countries are seen as ‘safe countries of origin.’ They are all bound by the European Convention of Human Rights, upheld by the European Court of Human Rights which the Tories and Reform would like to see disappear. While the European Convention remains in place, asylum claims from EEA countries would automatically be deemed inadmissible.

Ed Davey has been brave and clear, responding to a world which has changed over the last decade. There will be a financial cost to being part of the single market, but the membership fee is outweighed by the benefits of being part of a single trading bloc – and it is being in the single market, not simply being part of a customs union, as the present government appears to be proposing, that will deliver those financial benefits. The UK has become poorer and more isolated in an increasingly dangerous world over the last decade. Ed Davey’s announcement is a step towards reversing that. It is the right policy for this government or its successor.

* Mark Corner is a UK national, who teaches economic history and philosophy at the University of Leuven, is married to a Czech EU official and lives in Brussels. He has just published A Tale of Two Unions suggesting that Brexit may damage the British Union unless the UK becomes more positive about the way the European Union is structured.