Andy Burnham says rejoining the EU is among options Britain should examine

UK Prime Minister Andy Burnham said on Wednesday, 30 September, that rejoining the European Union is among the options Britain should examine as it reviews its relationship with the bloc. Speaking to BBC Radio 4's Today programme, he also named a customs union, the single market and keeping the current arrangement. He said the government must assess what is possible and weigh each option's advantages and drawbacks; no decision to seek EU membership has been announced.

Asked whether he wanted Britain to rejoin, Burnham told the BBC he wanted to ‘look at the options’. He said he had previously advocated rejoining within his lifetime, but added that it was ‘not necessarily the case that that is now’. His answer left open how far he wants the review to go and which outcome he would ultimately support.

Which EU options did Burnham name?

Burnham began with the possibility of leaving the relationship as it is. ‘We could stay as we are. That's definitely an option, if people think this is the right place to stay,’ he told the programme. He then pointed to a customs union, citing former chancellor George Osborne, and to the single market, citing the Liberal Democrats, before saying Britain could ‘go all the way’.

Those alternatives are politically distinct. Burnham did not present a preferred model or a negotiating proposal in the interview. ‘There are clearly options that need to be considered,’ he said, adding that the government had to examine ‘what is doable’ and the ‘pros and cons of each’. His comments describe a proposed assessment, rather than a settled change in Britain's relationship with the EU.

How does this differ from Labour's previous position?

Burnham's latest comments also go further than what he said during the Makerfield by-election campaign that returned him to Parliament. The BBC reported that he had promised not to ‘re-run’ arguments about Brexit and said he was ‘not proposing that the UK considers rejoining the EU’. The BBC did not give the date of that earlier campaign statement. His new interview puts membership on the list of possibilities to examine without making it government policy.

In his Labour conference speech on Tuesday, Burnham argued that Brexit had done ‘more harm than good’ and said the current relationship was not good enough, the BBC reported. He promised to set out different options for Britain's long-term ties with Europe around a rescheduled UK–EU summit later this year, and said he would try to find consensus around one. He gave no detail about how that consensus would be measured.

When could the government set out its approach?

The Guardian reported that the delayed UK–EU summit was expected at the end of November or soon afterwards. That is an expectation for a future meeting, not a confirmed outcome of the review. Burnham linked his promised discussion of options to the summit, while the BBC reported that the change of prime minister had delayed a summit originally planned for the summer.

The Guardian's account of the conference speech said Burnham had not specified his preferred options there and had not explicitly ruled out rejoining. The subsequent BBC interview supplied the clearest list so far. It still leaves basic questions unanswered: which route Burnham would advocate, what terms might be available from the EU, and whether Labour would ask voters for a mandate to pursue a particular change.

How have other parties responded?

Liberal Democrat leader Sir Ed Davey urged Burnham to pursue his party's proposals to join the single market and a customs union. ‘Talk is cheap,’ Davey said in comments reported by the BBC, calling on Burnham to negotiate a better deal. Reform UK deputy leader Richard Tice accused Burnham of trying to take Britain back into Brussels ‘via the back door’ and said his party would oppose the move.

Conservative deputy leader Alex Burghart, responding to Burnham's conference speech, said Labour could not blame its economic decisions on the Brexit vote and criticised its existing EU reset, according to the BBC. The opposing responses show the political argument Burnham's review has reopened. For now, the firm development is his willingness to examine a wider range of choices; the government has made no commitment to apply for EU membership or hold a referendum.