Britain can recover from the self-harm of Brexit. Today’s return to the EU’s Horizon project shows how | Simon Jenkins

Polls suggest a majority of Britons regret our exit. Rejoining the scientific programme could be the start of something bigger

Is this the dawn? Have we reached the glimmer of a new beginning? Rishi Sunak’s about-turn on joining the European Union’s Horizon programme is a first note of sanity in the two and a half tortured years since Britain formally left the EU. Let it not be the last.

The story itself is miserable. Horizon is an £81bn continent-wide programme to give Europe’s scientific researc...