British prime minister Andy Burnham has opened the door to rejoining the European Union after the UK\u2019s next general election.<\/p>\n
In his first speech as premier to the governing Labour Party\u2019s annual conference on Tuesday, Burnham vowed to set out options for a new relationship with the bloc later this year.<\/p>\n
He said he would explore a more radical approach to rebuilding the UK\u2019s relationship with the EU by trying to find consensus around what the country wanted. <\/p>\n
Afterwards, his spokesman refused to rule out the option of rejoining the EU.<\/p>\n
Burnham told party members that the Brexit vote in 2016 had left the country weaker and failed to allow Britain to \u201ctake back control\u201d of its borders and rules, as promised by the Leave campaign.<\/p>\n
\u201cBrexit has done more harm than good,\u201d said Burnham. \u201cWe\u2019ve lost some of the control we had over our economy, as a decade of low growth has put us in a weaker position, and we\u2019ve lost some of our control over immigration.\u201d<\/p>\n
The remarks towards the end of a speech that lasted more than an hour showed how the new premier, in office for just over two months, is preparing to tackle some of the country\u2019s thorniest challenges.<\/p>\n
On the EU, he confirmed that a long-awaited summit between Britain and the bloc would happen before the end of the year, having been delayed by the resignation of his predecessor, Keir Starmer. <\/p>\n
But he added that the UK wouldn\u2019t be on a \u201cclear path\u201d until \u201cwe decide on a long-term relationship with what is still our largest market. 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\u2019s long-term relationship with our European partners. And I will see if we can find consensus around one.\u201d<\/p>\n
Neither Burnham nor his spokesman spelled out what options he would look at, though they\u2019re likely to include rejoining the bloc\u2019s single market, customs union, or both. <\/p>\n
There may be another model to look at in Canada\u2019s relationship to the EU, after European Commission president Ursula von der Leyen earlier this month proposed Canada could become the first associate member of the bloc.<\/p>\n
Analysis by Bloomberg Economics found that Brexit may have cost the UK between 2 per cent and 4 per cent of GDP, with the central 2.5 per cent case equating to lost tax revenues of \u00a330 billion (\u20ac35 billion).<\/p>\n
The research considered three different options for future relations with the EU: rejoining the single market for goods, a bespoke package of interlocking trade agreements, and rejoining the EU customs union. <\/p>\n
Starting from a baseline that the long-run cost of the current arrangement will be 2.5 per cent of GDP, the analysis points to closer ties delivering a prize of between 0.4 percentage points and 1.2 percentage points of recovered economic output.<\/p>\n
The prospect of reopening a discussion on Brexit could derail the government\u2019s ongoing negotiations with the EU to improve the current trade relationship between the two sides. <\/p>\n
Brussels officials have indicated a reluctance to engage in detailed talks with London while it lacks a settled policy on its approach to the bloc.<\/p>\n
While the commitment to explore options with the EU may help Burnham win back centrist and left-wing voters who had shifted to the Green Party or Liberal Democrats, it prompted criticism from Nigel Farage\u2019s populist right-wing party Reform UK, which until recently led Labour in the polls.<\/p>\n
\u201cAndy Burnham has barely been prime minister five minutes and he\u2019s already trying to sneak us back into Brussels via the back door,\u201d deputy Reform leader Richard Tice said in a statement. <\/p>\n
\u201cHe says Brexit has done more harm than good, but what\u2019s done real harm is a Labour government that can\u2019t deliver growth, can\u2019t control migration and now wants to outsource the job to Brussels.\u201d<\/p>\n
Burnham, however, used his speech to criticise the political right \u2013 including the main opposition Conservative party \u2013 for its record over the past four decades, slamming Brexit, Tory privatisations in the 1980s and Conservative austerity policies in the 2010s.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe British right talk about taking back control,\u201d Burnham said. \u201cNever let them forget. They are the ones that gave it away in the first place. Economic control diminished by selling off essentials. Political control corroded by the hollowing out of councils. Immigration control weakened by Brexit.\u201d \u2013 Bloomberg<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"British prime minister Andy Burnham has opened the door to rejoining the European Union after the UK\u2019s next…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":640220,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[85530,57092,42,1193,43,17144,40,38,41,39],"class_list":["post-640219","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-headlines","tag-andy-burnham","tag-brexit","tag-headlines","tag-labour-party-uk","tag-news","tag-reform-uk","tag-top-news","tag-top-stories","tag-topnews","tag-topstories"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/640219","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=640219"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/640219\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/640220"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=640219"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=640219"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=640219"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}