Julian Jessop tells this week’s edition of The Capitalist that it’s time for Britain to reset its European relationship — without losing sight of the bigger picture.
By all accounts, relations between London and Brussels have settled into a kind of wary truce — functional, if not always fluent. But economist Julian Jessop believes the moment is right for a measured recalibration.
“I think there’s a sort of false division often made — a false choice presented between moving closer to the US or closer to the EU,” Jessop tells The Capitalist. “In many ways, we can do both.”
His pitch is pragmatic: keep the current trade deal with the EU — already “pretty good, by the way, compared to many others” — but build on it where it counts. Jessop points to areas like youth mobility, veterinary standards, and the Pan-European Mediterranean Convention (a trade protocol governing rules of origin) as zones of quiet opportunity.
“These are marginal improvements,” he says, “but meaningful ones.”
At the same time, Jessop is cautious about creeping too far into regulatory realignment. “There’s only so far we should move back,” he says. “We’d risk losing the benefits of Brexit — like being able to set our own rules on financial services, AI, and animal welfare.”
For Jessop, sovereignty isn’t just symbolic. It’s the basis for flexibility — and, perhaps, leverage. While some in Westminster remain focused on Brussels, he sees room to pivot westward too.
“At the extreme,” he says with a smile, “we should just drop all our tariffs with the US. If they’re daft enough to impose tariffs on us, there’s no reason we should be stupid enough to copy them.”
It’s a characteristically forthright stance from an economist who prizes open markets over diplomatic niceties. But the underlying point is a serious one: “Even if we can’t do a deal with the US, we should just lower our tariffs and see UK consumers and businesses benefit as a result.”
Jessop’s outlook is less about ideological purity and more about global positioning. A looser, leaner framework with Brussels, improved in the right places, could free the UK to engage more confidently elsewhere — not least across the Atlantic.
The message is clear: Britain’s future needn’t be locked in a binary between Europe and America. With a little agility — and a bit of diplomatic polish — it can chart a course toward both.
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