Much better to adopt a EU-wide scheme rather than to pick and chose among different countries. Sunak tries it and failed. Like most Tory policies since the decision to hold a referendum on EU membership.
Reading the article it does not strike me as burning political capital necessarily. If the "hurr durr Brexit" crowd needs to be slow boiled into reintegrating into the EU, then this is also in the interest of the EU as a whole.
And so far the EU played it quite well, being the "more adult" party to the whole Brexit fiasco. Given the fast shift of global power and the potential ramifications of a second Trump presidency for the security architecture of the EU, reintegrating Britain is more important than ever before.