The 2016 Brexit referendum was sold by David Cameron as a one in a generation chance to clarify the UK’s relationship with the European Union. Generations have certainly got shorter – 10 years on, a new Labour Prime Minister is telegraphing his intention to find a way to closen ties with the EU or even rejoin it.
Andy Burnham’s propensity to shoot from the lip is now a firm part of his political identity. It is one of the ways he seeks to delineate himself from his more buttoned-up predecessor Sir Keir Starmer, taking the view that he can muse out loud about issues, from European re-connection to apologies for colonial slavery, where others (notably the Palace under King Charles) prefer omerta or circumlocution.
On the EU however, this is also Burnham’s way of testing the waters to see how his pro-European views go down and where he can build coalitions or interest – and how his opponents will respond. Today, he received a useful fillip from the out-gone chancellor Rachel Reeves, who writes in the Sunday Times that she believes Britain’s future should lie in the EU and that Brexit has left us “poorer, weaker and less secure”. Reeves also acknowledges that any government serious about revisiting EU membership would need to “make the argument, demonstrate tangible benefits and get the next steps right”.
This is quite some “terms and conditions apply” addendum. At the same time, it shows that the matter is out in the open and that a kind of UK-wide family therapy about the root causes of the 2016 decision and its consequences can begin. And enticing others to give their views is also handy for Burnham, who wants to wash away the “red lines” signed up to by Starmer. Burnham is saying that he wants to conversation to be a very different and far bolder one when he goes to the country.
Just under a third of Britons now poll (via YouGov) as still believing it was right to leave the EU, a steady majority of around 57 per cent think the decision was clearly wrong. It’s an altogether more dubious prospect to suggest we would be markedly richer had we stayed in the EU despite the heavily qualified figures that between four and eight per cent of GDP was lost over a decade.
Labour’s pro-Europeanism does tend to omit less convenient truths about weaknesses in the continent’s performance over the last 10 years, a period in which the number European companies ranked among the world’s top 100 has halved and EU governments are entangled in their own energy crises and deficit wrangles. Many of these effects seem to be continent-wide (apart from in the faster growing eastern Europe) and the UK has many of the same underlying issues – the decline in car industries, high electricity costs and trade tariff backlash – as Berlin or Paris. Added to which Europe in the midst of now routine weekend riots and in the grip of a far-right advance in many regions and an aggressive hard-left response in elections.
Undeniably though, being outside the trading block has caused friction for small businesses and deepened time-suck bureaucracy. The blocking of the UK’s participation in SAFE the weapons procurement scheme to aid Ukraine was in essence as a reminder from Paris that the UK could not be “half in and half out.” As Reeves is suggesting, some of this appetite for punishment might well lessen Britain were on a path to rejoining. But at a price. If the UK stays outside the single currency (as Burnham pledges), the main member states will demand some degree of financial tribute for the UK to return to the “club”. We might well end up back where we were before 2016 – pressing for a deal which resembles “outer core” membership on complex terms.
One French official involved in curating the emergency post Brexit trade deal puts it tartly that Burnham has to “cut through” the noise to show a more serious path back to Europe. That could happen by another referendum – but that feels like a long and tortuous road.
That leaves the prospect of making a pitch to rejoin the EU part of the next Labour manifesto. It has the advantage for the Labour leader of pushing Kemi Badenoch’s Tories to declare their opposition – which they will, but she is won’t want to revisit the mess Conservative governments left behind and split Brexit-loyal voters between her party and Reform. Labour on the other hand will also hope to peel off Tory voters who either have acquired Bregret or never wanted Brexit to start with, on top of getting tacit support form Lib Dems, who would rejoice at a come-to-the-EU moment.
A wait-and see-budget and major welfare reforms also suggest that Burnham is edging his way towards an early election. Note that his own pronouncements have switched since Labour’s conference from a pledge not to bother us with voting will 2029 – now saying there will be no election only for the next year as well the weight of expectation being placed on a 10-year planned being slow-cooked in Number 10. That feels like a manifesto in the making.
In truth, the point at which Burnham’s plan to plug a restless UK back into the European Union becomes more than blandishments, hopey-statements and side-deals is when it is an election pledge, backed with a strong personal mandate.
That prospect must surely have dawned on a Prime Minister who does not relish life on the edge of Europe’s political community and would like to be the changemaker. Alas it is not a course of action that comes without a price tag or with as much speed attached to it om the other side of the Channel as its advocates might like to think. Britain has cooled on the reality of being outside the EU. It’s a very uncertain bet how much we’d love the lengthy “recruitment” process re-admission would take and the role at the end of it. One thing we have learned is that we now have a Prime Minister preparing to put that to the test.
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