Reform is firing back at Burnham after the PM re-opened the Brexit debate and said rejoining the EU is on the table. So far Farage’s party has only criticised Burnham’s proposed reforms to the triple lock on pensions…
Farage will speak in leave-voting Doncaster tomorrow and accuse Burnham of plotting to put Britain in the Eurozone and reinstating free movement. It is a legal requirement under EU law for new joiners to adopt the Euro…
The Brexit battle is back on. Up goes the bat signal…
British businesses to not want to rejoin the Customs Union, Single Market, or the EU. Sorry Andy…
Rain Newton-Smith, director of the Confederation of British Industry said in June this year that the business community has no appetite to return:
“The evidence is compelling and indisputable that Brexit has created costs for business.. businesses aren’t looking to relitigate the referendum. None of the business leaders I speak to want to reopen that debate… Five years ago, businesses would have supported joining the customs union. But the reality is the world has changed. So, no, CBI members aren’t asking to join the customs union.”
The CBI campaigned passionately for remain in the referendum. You get over your ex, you move on…
In the Sunday Telegraph, which went out on Sunday – i.e. three days ago – Business Secretary Jonathan Reynolds was stressing that if the UK rejoined the EU Customs Union “then you’re going to lose out on all those opportunities around the rest of the world that we’ve got.” Correct…
“You’re not going to get much more benefit than what we’re already going to get from the agreement that we have struck and are negotiating the details of, and then you’re going to lose out on all those opportunities around the rest of the world that we’ve got.”
He added Britain must not reopen the debate about EU membership and risk a return to the “paralysis” of the Brexit years. Despite the spasmodic lurch of the Burnham government towards breaking the manifesto red lines – the policy has no benefits…
Andy Burnham has admitted rejoining the EU is one of the “different options” on the table as he shreds Starmer’s bogus ‘red lines’ on Brexit. “We could go all the way”…
Speaking to Nick Robinson on the Today programme, Burnham said:
“I have said in the book that I would like to see Britain rejoin in my lifetime so there’s no point me saying otherwise, but it’s not necessarily the case that that is now… we could stay as we are, that’s definitely an option… we could look at what 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…”
The battle lines are drawn…
No10 has, after a long lead-up, effectively scrapped Starmer’s red lines on EU rejoin. It says ‘nothing is off the table,’ including a pledge to rejoin the EU fully or moving back into the customs union or single market. Burnham said that he will set out options around November:
“So, I will take the opportunity around the summit to lay out to you, to lay out to the country, what I believe the different options are for Britain’s long-term relationship with our European partners.”
You’re on…
Deep inside Labour’s voluminous conference documentation is a proposal to “examine the possibility of rejoining the European Union being a manifesto promise for the next general election“. That position has growing support within Labour…
A policy proposal from Bristol Central Constituency Labour Party designed to push the leadership to publicly adopt a pro-rejoin position is sneaking through the conference process. Burnham himself recently claimed he would like to see the UK rejoin the EU within his lifetime and is pursuing a stealth rejoin agenda as PM…
The idea has gone through a Labour mechanism called a ‘reference back’ which sees it sent to the powerful National Policy Forum – the highest policy authority inside the party. As Labour Attorney General Ellie Reeves boasted in her speech about the NPF yesterday, this move often prefigures the later adoption by the leadership of particular policies…
The wording is pretty clear: “Conference calls on the NPF to look beyond the ’24 manifesto commitments with respect to the EU relationship and to press for faster re-alignment with the EU 23 single market within this parliament and to examine the possibility of rejoining the European Union being a manifesto promise for the next general election.” Don’t say you weren’t warned Burnham wants to rejoin the EU as quickly as possible..
Kemi Badenoch at the 1922-ConHome bash last night:
“I did praise [Burnham] for his stamina, it was amazing. All I had to do was sit back and lie there. I didn’t have to do anything at all…”