Andy Burnham puts EU membership among options for Britain’s future
The prime minister says ministers will weigh staying with current arrangements, a customs union, the single market and full EU membership before he sets out a longer-term approach.
Prime Minister Andy Burnham said in interviews on Wednesday, 30 September, that the UK could consider ‘going all the way’ to rejoin the European Union as his government reviews Britain’s relationship with the bloc. The remark puts full membership among the options he says ministers will examine; it does not announce a decision to rejoin.
Burnham described a range of possible destinations, from keeping current arrangements to seeking a customs union, returning to the single market or pursuing EU membership. He told the BBC that ministers would consider ‘what is doable’ and the ‘pros and cons’ of each. That leaves both the government’s preferred outcome and the means of reaching it unsettled.
What Burnham said about rejoining the EU
Asked directly whether he wanted the UK to rejoin, Burnham told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme that he wanted to ‘look at the options’, according to the Guardian’s account of the interview. He included remaining where Britain is now, ‘if people think this is the right place to stay’. The breadth of the list is the new development, rather than a commitment to any one course.
Cadena SER also reported the 30 September interview and quoted Burnham as saying he would like to see Britain rejoin the EU in his lifetime, while cautioning that this would not necessarily happen now. A personal preference over a lifetime is different from a government policy choice. Neither report describes an announced timetable or negotiations for membership.
The comments go further than Burnham’s Labour conference speech in Liverpool the previous day. In that speech, as quoted by the Guardian, he said Brexit had done ‘more harm than good’ and promised to lay out different options for the country’s long-term relationship with its European partners around a forthcoming UK-EU summit. In Wednesday’s interviews, he explicitly named full membership as one of those options.
How the options differ from Labour’s 2024 position
The review would revisit boundaries Labour set during the 2024 general election. The Guardian reports that the party’s manifesto ruled out a return to the EU single market or customs union, as well as restoring freedom of movement. Burnham is now saying those first two arrangements should be considered alongside the status quo and possible membership. He has not said which, if any, should replace the current position.
A customs union and single-market participation are different proposals. A customs union would bring the UK and EU closer on trade in goods through common tariffs on imports from elsewhere, but would not by itself restore the broader single-market relationship or end every border check. The Guardian reports that single-market participation would entail closer alignment with EU rules. Full EU membership would be a further, distinct step.
The current UK-EU trade relationship
The UK left the EU on 31 January 2020. The European Commission records that the two sides reached an agreement on their future relationship in December that year, signed the Trade and Cooperation Agreement on 30 December 2020 and brought it into force on 1 May 2021. That agreement forms part of the current arrangements Burnham says could themselves remain an option.
The Guardian describes the EU as Britain’s largest trading partner and reports Burnham’s argument that the country needs to decide what long-term relationship it wants with that market. His criticism that Brexit has caused more harm than good is his assessment, not a quantified finding established by the interviews. The reported choice before ministers is how closely Britain should reconnect with the EU, if at all.
What happens before the UK-EU summit
Burnham has said he will set out the different choices around the UK-EU summit expected in November. The Guardian reports that the meeting had been postponed from July. His interviews gave no more precise date for publishing the options or choosing among them. For now, the next stated step is the government’s examination of feasibility and trade-offs, followed by Burnham’s account of the possible long-term paths.
The Guardian also reports that negotiations on food trade and youth mobility were under way and that the EU had authorised talks on closer electricity-market links. Those discussions are separate from Burnham’s newly stated willingness to examine full membership. His comments do not establish that the EU has agreed to membership talks, or that any of the options on his list has become government policy.
Sources and context
- Andy Burnham: UK could ‘go all the way’ by rejoining EUThe Guardian
- EU trade relations with the United KingdomEuropean Commission, Directorate-General for Trade
- El primer ministro británico abre la puerta a que Reino Unido vuelva a la UE: ‘El Brexit ha causado más daño que beneficio’Cadena SER
AI-assisted article checked against the listed sources. NewsJaws did not conduct interviews or attend the reported events.
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