What was claimed
The UK is rejoining the EU.
Our verdict
There are currently no plans for the UK to rejoin the EU, and the government has ruled out re-entering the single market or customs union.
No, the UK is not rejoining the EU
A Facebook post has shared a screenshot of what appears to be a TikTok video that suggests the UK is rejoining the EU this year—but this isn’t true.
Since Labour won the general election in July 2024, Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer has said he wants to improve relations with the EU “on a number of fronts”, including the economy and defence. But Mr Starmer says this does not mean a reversal of Brexit, adding that the UK will not re-enter the single market or the customs union.
On 13 January the Prime Minister appointed Michael Ellam to lead his reset negotiations with the EU.
The screenshot in the Facebook post seems to be from a TikTok video. Overlaid text reads: “UK 🇬🇧 Rejoin EU Finally Big Decision Good News For Everyone [sic]”, adding “Good News 2025”.
Full Fact could not find the original TikTok video, which looks to have been deleted. However, using Google Lens, Full Fact found the still image of Mr Starmer and Ursula von der Leyen, president of the European Commission, was taken in February 2024 in Munich, Germany, and pre-dates Mr Starmer’s time as Prime Minister.
We’ve spotted several other videos posted on TikTok in recent weeks which include text such as “UK Rejoin EU Finally Big Decision Good News For Everyone [sic]” and “FINALLY DECSION COMES UK REJOINS EU GOOD NEWS FOR EVERYONE [sic]”. But it simply isn’t true that the UK is set to rejoin the EU.
It’s important to consider whether information comes from a credible source before sharing it online. For more advice, read our toolkit.
This article is part of our work fact checking potentially false pictures, videos and stories on Facebook. You can read more about this—and find out how to report Facebook content—here. For the purposes of that scheme, we’ve rated this claim as false because the government has repeatedly ruled out reversing Brexit, or re-entering the single market or the customs union.