Prime Minister Andy Burnham has said he would welcome an ‘honest discussion’ about a return to free movement between the UK and the EU, making clear that staying out of it is no longer a red line in talks with Brussels.
He told The Sunday Times: ‘I think you have to have a very factual, quite evidence-based debate about this.’
Mr Burnham said the type of migration had changed since the UK was in the EU.
‘Revolving door migration where people would come and then go back is different,’ he said. ‘The balance of migration has changed, hasn’t it, since then? I think we’ve just got to have an honest discussion about those things.’
But he stressed: ‘I can’t see myself ever recommending anything that would involve joining the euro or Schengen.’
Housing Secretary Angela Rayner defended the PM on BBC One’s Sunday with Laura Kuenssberg, saying nothing could be ruled out.
‘The prime minister is clear that you can’t take anything off the table when you’re having a conversation. But the prime minister is not saying we’re going back to where we were in 2016,’ she said.
‘He’s saying we’ve got to be pragmatic to get the best deal for Britain and he wants to have the conversation.’
Ms Rayner added: ‘I would like us to have an honest conversation about what the trade-offs could be and then put that to the people at a general election.’ She repeatedly declined to say whether she personally wanted free movement to return.
The Guardian reports that Mr Burnham also believes rejoining the single market and accepting free movement could be done without another referendum if Labour put it in its manifesto. Fully rejoining the EU, he indicated, would need another in-out vote.
Image: ©House of Commons / Wikimedia Commons, CC BY 3.0
Labour’s current manifesto rules out a return to free movement and the single market, so any change would have to wait until after the next general election.
The Conservative and Reform UK leaders were swift to condemn the idea.
Tory leader Kemi Badenoch wrote on X: ‘This is yet another example of Burnham’s foot-in-mouth syndrome. He hasn’t thought this through or the implications.’
She added: ‘Most people who voted for Brexit did so because they didn’t want free movement. Too many politicians have failed to understand the significance and impact of immigration on communities.’
Reform UK leader Nigel Farage said: ‘This is a total betrayal of Brexit Britain and his Makerfield pitch. He is also deluded to say immigration was different when we were members of the EU. We will fight this dishonesty.’
Reform UK economy spokesperson Robert Jenrick told Kuenssberg: ‘I think it’s completely mad, the idea that this country needs more immigration.’
Former chancellor Jeremy Hunt, who backed Remain, said he was stunned by the move.
‘If I had any cornflakes this morning I would have choked on them. I was absolutely astonished,’ he told the programme. He warned that it would be a ‘hammer blow’ to efforts to get young people off welfare and into work.
Labour peer and Iceland boss Richard Walker told Times Radio: ‘We’ve been there, done that, and I think that’s a very dangerous precedent if you don’t like the answer of a referendum to go back and keep asking the same question.’
Liberal Democrat deputy leader Daisy Cooper told Kuenssberg that freedom of movement would be ‘a really good thing for growth’.
Stella Creasy, chair of the Labour Movement for Europe, said the PM was right and that the UK was ‘long overdue for a grown-up conversation about what EU freedom of movement actually means’.
The Guardian also reports that some Labour MPs in Brexit-voting seats in the north and Midlands are wary of reopening the argument.
Free movement allowed British and EU citizens to live and work across the bloc, which shares a single market for goods and services. During the 2016 referendum, the Leave campaign argued that quitting the EU would let the UK take control of its borders.
Net migration later rose to a peak of 944,000 in the year ending March 2023, up from 330,000 before the Brexit vote, according to figures cited by The Guardian.
Before the Makerfield by-election, Mr Burnham warned that ‘the last thing we should do right now is re-run those arguments’ about Brexit.
The PM is due to meet EU leaders, including European Commission president Ursula von der Leyen, in Brussels on November 20.
Sources
Main image: Prime Minister’s Office / Wikimedia Commons, OGL 3
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