As a founding member of the EU.
They were not a founding member though. They joined in 1973-1975 and have negotiated many exceptions to the EEC, causing other memberstates sometimes a bit of headaches.
"Brenter " would be a good idea, but like it's been said, there are ( British) political and systematic (compliance) hurdles. But they can be overcome.
Imo, Britain needs to clean the house first, from the lying (Ukip )traitors, who sold your country out. Also, during crises, lots can happen, quickly. Necessity is a huge drive force, especially in Politics, maybe we'll all be pleasantly surprised.
This article names his position among many big ssues, like energy, climate, trade, competition etc. About defense he said:
“We need to have discussions with both the British and the French — the two European nuclear powers — about whether nuclear sharing, or at least nuclear security from the U.K. and France, could also apply to us,” he said.
Elsewhere, Merz has promised big and broad policies to scale up Germany’s defense industry, and will be expected to follow through quickly on an earlier pledge to scrap his predecessor’s block on the dispatch of long-range Taurus cruise missiles to Ukraine for strikes on Russian targets.