Whilst a good idea, no politician is going to try and do it under the fear of reigniting the Brexit argument which ends up dominating politics in the country.
If the EU would accept a FTA without free movement of people is another matter.
Absolutely not. This was made clear repeatedly. What became clear in the UK was that we'd rather lose market access in order to appease people with an irrational hatred of our fellow Europeans.
If people think trade and movement boundaries are good, why don't we have internal ones? Why should Mancunians be allowed to take up scarce housing in London?
EU: "The free movement of goods is one of the four fundamental economic freedoms laid down in the EU founding treaties, the other three being the free movement of capital, services and people."
https://eur-lex.europa.eu/EN/legal-content/glossary/free-mov...
> "The single market seeks to guarantee the free movement of goods, capital, services, and people, known collectively as the "four freedoms" "
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/European_single_market
The EU would welcome the UK being closer aligned to the EU, trade-wise. But the UK cannot be in the single market without all four freedoms. Which the UK still rules out.
Now what exactly they're goanna do with the extra debt is the question.
More debt to fund innovation, infrastructure, defense, education and healthcare is welcome, but if it's just more debt to fund welfare and pensions, like Southern Europe, then nothing will improve.
People believed the "end of history" narratives about Russia, and even that it would become like the rest of the ex-communist states, a normal part of liberal Europe. That should have changed after 2014, but by then the grip of the financial crisis was preventing any increases in state spending.