Andy Burnham\u2019s call for the UK to consider a return to free movement with Europe has been backed by senior cabinet ministers but risked a rift with \u201cred wall\u201d Labour MPs, who say it could jeopardise Brexit-voting seats.<\/p>\n
The prime minister made his plea for an \u201chonest discussion\u201d about freedom of movement<\/a> in an interview with the Sunday Times, making clear that staying out of it would no longer be a red line in talks with the EU.<\/p>\n Burnham also revealed his belief that rejoining the single market and accepting free movement could be done without the need for another referendum, if Labour<\/a> put it in their manifesto. In contrast, he said fully rejoining would need another in-out poll.<\/p>\n The prime minister said: \u201cFreedom of movement had very significant challenges associated with it and I spoke about them in my previous time in parliament. But, at the same time, it was a type of immigration that perhaps wasn\u2019t as difficult [as now].<\/p>\n \u201cRevolving-door migration where people would come and then go back is different. The balance of migration has changed, hasn\u2019t it, since then? I think we\u2019ve just got to have an honest discussion about those things.\u201d<\/p>\n His remarks were supported by Angela Rayner, the housing secretary, as well as Stella Creasy, the chair of the Labour Movement for Europe. However, Shabana Mahmood<\/a>, the home secretary, is among those Labour MPs who previously has been more cautious about closer ties with Europe, while a number of backbenchers with heavily pro-Brexit seats in the north and Midlands are wary about reopening the arguments for free movement or rejoining the EU.<\/p>\n Rayner told the BBC\u2019s Sunday with Laura Kuenssberg she would \u201clike to have an honest conversation about what the trade-offs could be, and then put that to the people at a general election\u201d, and Creasy, the Labour MP for Walthamstow, said Burnham was right that the UK was \u201clong overdue for a grownup conversation about what EU freedom of movement actually means\u201d.<\/p>\n Stella Creasy said the UK was \u2018long overdue for a grownup conversation about what EU freedom of movement means\u2019. Photograph: Milo Chandler\/Alamy<\/p>\n A number of senior cabinet ministers are keen for the UK to form a much closer relationship with the EU to help boost growth, potentially involving a return to the single market and accepting free movement as a result. Those in favour of reopening the discussion include Ed Miliband<\/a>, the foreign secretary.<\/p>\n At a New Statesman event during the Labour party conference in September, however, Mahmood said rejoining the EU would not be a \u201csimple, straightforward thing\u201d and there were \u201cquite hard trade-offs\u201d, such as eliminating trade friction without \u201csome of the burdens that also brings\u201d.<\/p>\n One senior minister under Keir Starmer said the reopening of the debate on free movement was \u201cbrave\u201d given how divisive it had been in the Brexit<\/a> years. \u201cIt\u2019s a question of timing. Public opinion is of a place where you can start to have this debate,\u201d he said. \u201cTheresa May, Rishi Sunak, Keir Starmer: what they were all trying to do was get as close as possible without freedom of movement. There is now the a possibility of being brave and making the case on single market and free movement without going for rejoin.\u201d<\/p>\n Labour MPs with pro-Brexit seats have expressed scepticism about rejoining the bloc, including Jonathan Hinder, the MP for Pendle, who recently pressed the prime minister in parliament to rule out a return to free movement.<\/p>\n One red wall MP said they thought debating free movement was the right thing to do but many colleagues in the north-east, especially in coastal areas, had begun to raise serious concerns. \u201cThese MPs are definitely raising the alarm,\u201d they said. \u201cAndy may have to work out if he can win without them, which is brutal but true.\u201d Another Labour MP from a Brexit-voting area said it would \u201cundoubtedly put seats at risk to Reform\u201d but that Burnham was making an argument from a position of strength, having taken the party to higher poll ratings in recent weeks.<\/p>\n Worries were brought up publicly on Sunday by Richard Walker, the Labour peer and executive chair of Iceland, who told Times Radio that restarting the debate would be a \u201cdangerous precedent\u201d and that opening the borders would not help the \u201c1 million young people that are out of work\u201d.<\/p>\n In his party conference speech last month, Burnham fired the starting gun on the argument about rejoining the EU as one potential route, but his latest comments suggest he appears to be favouring the option that would avoid a referendum.<\/p>\n Although Labour\u2019s manifesto pledges no return to free movement and the single market, Burnham signalled it could still be up for discussion at next month\u2019s EU summit.<\/p>\n Burnham\u2019s comments at the weekend drew an immediate response from the right of politics, with the Conservatives and Reform UK criticising the idea of reopening the debate. Kemi Badenoch, the Conservative leader, said the idea of reopening free movement was \u201canother example of Burnham\u2019s foot-in-mouth syndrome\u201d.<\/p>\n Kemi Badenoch said Burnham \u2018hasn\u2019t thought this through or the implications\u2019. Photograph: Neil Hall\/EPA<\/p>\n Nigel Farage, the Reform UK leader, called it a \u201ctotal betrayal of Brexit Britain and his Makerfield pitch\u201d. \u201cHe is also deluded to say immigration was different when we were members of the EU. We will fight this dishonesty,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n Polling suggests voters in the UK are increasingly open to rejoining the EU or a single market arrangement involving free movement. The concept of free movement was that British and EU citizens could move more freely for jobs within the bloc, which also shared a single market for goods and services.<\/p>\n Luke Tryl, a polling and focus groups expert at the More in Common thinktank, said on Sunday that people tended to be less concerned about free movement given years of high non-EU migration but would be more exercised about EU budget contributions or joining the euro.<\/p>\n During the Brexit referendum, the topic was hotly debated, with the leave campaign arguing that the UK would be able to take control of its borders if it voted to exit the EU. However, in the years that followed, net migration rose to a peak of 944,000 in the year ending March 2023<\/a> under a new points-based system, up from 330,000 before the Brexit vote<\/a>.<\/p>\n