Burnham Flags EU Re‑entry as One of Several Brexit‑Era Options

Speaking on BBC Radio 4’s Today programme, Burnham said he did not want the EU relationship question ‘hanging’ and wanted to be clear on ‘where we want Britain to go in the next decade’.

When asked whether he wanted the UK to rejoin the EU, he replied that he wanted to ‘look at the options’.

He added that he had previously advocated such a move within his lifetime, while acknowledging that it is not necessarily the case that this is now.

‘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.

‘We could look at what [former Chancellor] George Osborne has said about a customs union, we could look at what the Liberal Democrats said at their conference about the single market, or we could go all the way.’

‘So 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 added.

In his conference speech on Tuesday, Burnham blamed Brexit for a loss of control over both immigration and the economy, telling delegates he did not believe the current relationship was ‘good enough’.

He told activists he wanted to use the rescheduled summit later this year to lay out ‘different options’ for the UK’s long‑term relationship with Europe.

He promised to ‘find consensus’ on an option to clarify the UK’s position, though he did not offer further detail on how this would be measured.

In response to Burnham’s conference speech, Conservative deputy leader Alex Burghart said: ‘Labour cannot pin the blame for their disastrous economic decisions on a vote that happened over a decade ago. Besides, they are already dragging us into the European Union via the back door with their EU reset.’

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