Prime Minister Andy Burnham opened the door to rejoining the European Union single market, triggering immediate cabinet division and intense debate across Westminster.
The strategy aims to move beyond Labour’s existing manifesto red lines after the next election. Downing Street sources said that Burnham wants to frame the conversation rather than jump straight to an endgame while testing public opinion, according to reporting by BBC News and The Guardian.
Cabinet ministers hold sharply contrasting views on the approach. Housing Angela Rayner has pushed for a bolder stance on Brexit since autumn 2022, according to BBC News, remaining open-minded about changing manifesto red lines at the next election.
Another cabinet minister told BBC News that Brexit has been hugely damaging to Britain.
“The best thing you can do in politics is tell the truth. And the truth is that Brexit has been hugely damaging to Britain,” the unnamed cabinet minister told BBC News. “We are not leading a public conversation here, we are racing to catch up with the public.”
Culture Secretary Lisa Nandy warned against circular arguments on whether the UK should rejoin the EU, noting that the approach could benefit Reform UK leader Nigel Farage.
“I do not believe that anybody wants to repeat circular arguments about in or out, leave or remain.” “I do think, though, that over the last decade we have let the British people down very badly,” said Lisa Nandy, Culture Secretary, speaking to The Guardian. Home Secretary Shabana Mahmood struck a cautious tone regarding the costs and consequences of both staying out and rejoining the EU.
Business and Trade Secretary Jonathan Reynolds expressed support for closer long-term ties but warned against joining the customs union due to political uncertainty across Europe.
“Well, these guys are gonna rejoin anyway, so what’s the point in giving them a good partnership deal,” Lord Cameron told Bloomberg’s Mishal Husain.
The former prime minister warned that starting a conversation about rejoining would be “very long and painful” and could harm Burnham’s attempts to renegotiate the Conservative Party’s Brexit deal. Prime Minister Andy Burnham has also faced criticism from cabinet figures, after stressing the need to keep all the options open and refusing to rule out the possibility of rejoining, according to commentary published by ThinkScotland.
Backbench reaction remains mixed across political lines. One Scottish Labour MP with a heavily Remain-voting constituency opposed the shift, questioning how to argue that the 2014 Scottish independence referendum was settled for a generation while treating the 2016 EU referendum differently.
Gareth Snell, Labour MP for Stoke-on-Trent, where the Leave vote reached 69.4%, warned on the BBC’s Westminster Hour that reopening the debate would monopolize parliamentary time. Downing Street plans to pursue a reset deal during the European Political Community summit in Dublin, seeking agreements on agriculture and food, emissions trading, and youth experience visas.
“I cannot see what is political about saying that we want young people from every part of this country to understand the contribution that their grandparents and great-grandparents made, not just to us but to many, many lives of people that they had never met,” Lisa Nandy, Culture Secretary, said.
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