Andy Burnham has said that Burnham Brexit EU options range from the status quo to full membership of the European Union, telling the BBC’s Today Programme on Wednesday that every possibility is ‘on the table’ for Britain’s future relationship with the bloc. The statement marks a clear departure from the position he adopted during the Makerfield by-election campaign, when he told the BBC he was ‘not proposing that the UK considers rejoining the EU’ and would not ‘re-run’ the Brexit debate.
Speaking at the Labour party conference on Wednesday morning, Burnham set out what he described as a spectrum of choices. ‘There are clearly options that need to be considered, and we have to look at what is doable and what would be the pros and cons of each,’ he said. Remaining in the current arrangement was one possibility, he acknowledged: ‘We could stay as we are. That’s definitely an option, if people think this is the right place to stay.’
He also pointed to the customs union position associated with former Chancellor George Osbourne and the single market proposal put forward by the Liberal Democrats, before going further. ‘We could go all the way,’ Burnham told the Today Programme, a phrase that would mean reversing the 2016 referendum and seeking full re-entry to the EU.
A reversal of Labour’s manifesto position on Brexit
The shift is considerable. At the 2024 general election, Labour’s manifesto explicitly pledged to ‘make Brexit work’ while ruling out rejoining either the customs union or the single market, according to BBC reporting. Burnham’s willingness to place both back on the table, alongside full membership, represents a material change of direction from the platform on which Labour won power.
In his conference speech on Tuesday, Burnham had already set the tone, arguing that Brexit had done ‘more harm than good.’ He said the current UK-EU relationship was not ‘good enough’ and described the forthcoming UK-EU summit, originally scheduled for 22 July before the change in leadership, as an opportunity to forge closer ties with the 27-state bloc. Reuters reports that a November UK-EU summit is planned specifically to outline the options for Britain’s long-term relationship with the bloc, giving the process an early concrete staging post.
Burnham said he would ‘find consensus’ on which direction to pursue, though he offered no detail on the process by which that consensus would be reached or how any public mandate might be sought.
Burnham Brexit EU options draw Conservative fire
Alex Burghart, deputy leader of the Conservative Party, was swift to push back. ‘Labour cannot pin the blame for their disastrous economic decisions on a vote that happened over a decade ago,’ he said. ‘Besides, they are already dragging us into the European Union via the back door with their EU reset.’
Hamish Falconer, minister of state for intergovernmental relations and European relations, told delegates at an event hosted by the Tony Blair Institute for Global Change that Burnham wanted to go ‘further and faster’ in rebuilding links with the EU. ‘He thinks Europe is an important question for the UK, that Brexit has not been a success, and so he is quite rightly sending me off with an ambitious set of instructions to try and get us closer to Europe faster,’ Falconer said.
The broader context stretches back to Burnham’s predecessor. Sir Keir Starmer had already moved to repair relations with Brussels, pledging a ‘reset’ as part of last year’s routine five-year review of the UK-EU trade and cooperation agreement, which was signed in 2020. Burnham’s language on Wednesday goes considerably beyond that reset framing.
With the November summit now providing a timeline, the question of which of the Burnham Brexit EU options will be presented to that meeting, and in what form, is likely to dominate the coming weeks of political debate. Falconer’s presence at the conference, carrying what he described as ‘ambitious’ instructions, suggests the groundwork is already under way.
