The idea of the United Kingdom becoming an ‘associate member’ of the European Union is a non-starter because it would settle nothing and satisfy almost nobody politically.

For Brexiteers it would involve a future British government – presumably one led by Sir Keir Starmer – breaking its word by setting off on a mission to take the country back to full EU membership and from there to the inner-core of the eurozone.

Rather than settling Britain’s future relations with Europe, it would tip the country back into uncertainty and angst

For ardent Rejoiners it would be a nicotine patch measure. They would have their noses pressed up against the window of their beloved EU, gazing longingly at all the sovereignty pooling taking place among MEPs and Commissioners but with no means of actually joining in.

Rather than settling Britain’s future relations with its fast-integrating continental neighbours it would therefore tip the country back into uncertainty and angst, relitigating old disputes and summoning forth new ones.

Under the terms of a discussion paper drawn up by France and Germany – more pie in the sky thinking than blue sky thinking surely – the UK could even resume single market membership on condition of being bound by rulings from the European Court of Justice and making annual contributions towards the EU’s budget.

If there was ever a time for this ‘variable geometry’ then it was while the UK was still inside the EU and when the British political elite could have done with proof to present to its electorate that it was not on a one-way ratchet to ‘ever-closer union’. But the EU instead chose to retain the inflexible terms set out in the Treaty of Rome as a compulsory part of the formal furniture.

The thinking behind a newly-Brexited Britain sitting in an outer-ring of a four-circle Europe, with the eurozone at its core, followed by other full EU members, then a UK outer orbit and finally a fourth circle of embarrassing country cousins who only get invited to special occasions now looks remarkably Brussels-centric. That is fine for EU candidate countries that share the view of full membership being some kind of ultimate prize. But not for a major country whose population decided to restore national sovereignty and strike out for other opportunities.

We are already a key member of the new ‘European Political Community’ – a talking shop of more than 40 nations first suggested by France last year – and are scheduled to host its next summit in Spring 2024. That is surely enough Gallic-inspired ‘Europe’ for the British public to digest.

Starmer, in so far as his word is any kind of bond on European matters, has already explicitly ruled out rejoining the single market, customs union or free movement obligations. His recent pledge to renegotiate the terms of our Brexit deal – which he considers too ‘thin’ – in as-yet undefined ways surely represents the outer-limits of what is politically expedient.

Recent opinion polls purport to show a high level of Brexit regret among the UK electorate and a strong lead for rejoin in any future referendum. Wiser heads will suspect that this finding is mainly a proxy for public dissatisfaction about the state of the nation and that a detailed rejoin proposition would not survive contact with the electorate for very long.

Tony Blair is said to be the driving force behind Starmer’s current slightly more expansive approach towards the European question. No doubt Blair remains an ardent integrationist. Yet one cannot help but recall that when he was actually in the hot seat he did not dare hold a referendum on taking the UK into the single currency and swiftly backed out of a pledge to have one on the European Constitution once it had been rebadged as the Lisbon Treaty.

Polls may ebb and flow but British Euroscepticism has very deep roots indeed. The British public has never given advance permission for any significant act of integration. Even the 1975 referendum was a post-facto verdict on a new status quo. The 2016 referendum – sandwiched between Ukip winning the 2014 European elections, and the Brexit party the 2019 ones – was supposed to be the one question EU-philes thought they could carry the day with: basic membership clad in rhetoric about a referendum lock on future integrationist measures and emergency brakes on immigration. They even lost that.

It goes without saying that a future Tory administration could not opt for something called ‘associate EU membership’. To imagine that a future Labour one will take a container labelled ‘can of worms’ from a dusty shelf and think it a good idea to open it is scarcely any less credible.