Senior Downing Street officials have been contacting thinktanks and pollsters to test public support for the UK rejoining the EU, according to the Guardian, as momentum builds behind including such a pledge in Labour’s next manifesto.
Aides to Andy Burnham have been talking to EU experts at a range of organisations about how the public would view a promise to rejoin, the newspaper reported.
Some in No 10 want Labour to promise at least to negotiate over re-entry, something Burnham has said he wants to see happen “in his lifetime”. Others fear such a promise could revive the political fortunes of Reform UK leader Nigel Farage, according to the Guardian.
Burnham used his first Labour conference speech as leader on Tuesday to announce a review of the options for Britain’s relationship with Europe.
He told delegates: “Brexit has done more harm than good. So I will take the opportunity around the [UK-EU] summit to lay out to you, to lay out to the country, what I believe are the different options for Britain’s long-term relationship with our European partners.”
Yesterday he confirmed that rejoining would be among them, an option his predecessor Keir Starmer had ruled out. He told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme: “We could stay as we are. That’s definitely an option, if people think this is the right place to stay. We could look at what [the former Conservative 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.”
Alex Burghart, the Conservative deputy leader, said: “Labour cannot blame a democratic vote from over a decade ago for the consequences of their own economic decisions.”
Last week the Tony Blair Institute published a paper, Beyond Leave and Remain: A Path to Rejoining a Reformed Europe, arguing that Burnham should seek membership talks with Brussels, but only if Europe relaxed its regulations in sectors including energy and technology.
On the same day, the campaign group Best for Britain released a YouGov megapoll suggesting Labour could more than double its projected seat total by promising to rejoin. The Institute for Public Policy Research is due to publish a paper calling for the UK to rejoin, the Guardian reported.
Some in Downing Street point to polling showing that a rejoin promise does little to boost support for Reform, and note that Farage attacked the prime minister’s speech over the pensions triple lock rather than Europe.
The Guardian was told that some at the top of government had wanted Burnham to promise this week to begin work on rejoining after the next election. That was ruled out because the party was bracing for a fight over pensions and did not want to give succour to Farage, according to the newspaper. No 10 said the prime minister never considered making such a promise and that it was not in any draft of the speech.
Emmanuel Macron welcomed Burnham’s comments at a press conference in Madrid yesterday. “Welcome back,” the French president said in English, adding in French: “If the British want to come back and if the prime minister is moving in that direction, I think that is very good news, both for his country and for the Europeans.”
An EU spokesperson said the bloc remained “open to engaging on the options it may put forward”.
The shift has been accompanied by fresh engagement on the EU’s Made in Europe legislation, which threatens to lock UK goods out of some supply chains on the continent. No 10 has sought to have British manufacturers classified as European under the rules, with officials threatening to delay an EU-UK summit until London received signals of an accommodation. The TUC called last month for the government to match the EU’s Industrial Accelerator Act with a UK equivalent.
There is now talk of holding the summit on 20 November. One EU diplomat said Starmer’s reset agenda needed to be concluded before talks on “a real reset” could begin. A second said there was “a good feeling” that Burnham was looking at all options and seeking a consensus, “something Brussels has wanted to see”.
