Burnham Calls Current Brexit Deal 'Not Good Enough' but Rules Out Rejoining

Andy Burnham has declared the current Brexit deal "not good enough" for Britain, while flatly ruling out any move to rejoin the EU during this parliament. His verdict, delivered on Monday on Good Morning Britain, is the bluntest assessment yet from the Labour leader that Brexit has failed to deliver what was promised.

Burnham's core argument is that Britain ended up with a "harder Brexit than was proposed in the referendum campaign," and that it has damaged both the economy and border control. "I don't think it has played out as people said it would at the time," he said. "It's weakened our economy. It's also weakened our control of immigration, and that might surprise people because that was the big issue, but the small boats crisis has risen since and we have a different form of immigration now."

What does this change for Britain's EU relationship?

In practice, nothing immediate. Burnham said he would not "move away from the red lines in Labour's manifesto" and stressed: "I'm not proposing rejoining [the EU] in this parliament. We're way, way away from that at this particular point in time. What I am saying is we need to take some practical steps to make the arrangement work better."

Asked directly whether he wanted Britain back inside the EU, Burnham was candid about his personal view but firm on the politics: "I've said I'm going to be honest and say, in my lifetime I would like to see that happen, but I am not going to move ahead of the public. I am not going to dictate in terms of my own opinions here, you have to make sure that the British public are the bosses."

The immigration twist

Burnham's sharpest point concerns border control, the issue that drove much of the Leave vote. He argues Brexit made the UK's borders weaker, not stronger. "I think we've got weaker control now. The reason the small boats crisis has arisen is because we can't return people, and people know we can't do that in the same way that we used to be able to," he said.

He backed the home secretary's controversial plan to make foreign workers wait 15 years before qualifying for permanent residency, endorsing the principle laid out by Shabana Mahmood that "settlement is a right to be earned not just something that is granted automatically." He said he supported "the principle" of the plans while acknowledging the controversy around them.

The Makerfield problem

The political risk is obvious. Burnham's own constituents in Makerfield voted 65% to leave the EU, and Labour MPs representing leave-voting seats across the north of England and the Midlands worry that reopening the Brexit debate hands an opening to Reform UK.

Burnham's answer: he isn't rerunning the referendum. "The British public, the people of Makerfield, will be the bosses here. They will decide what happens in relation to Brexit … What I can do though is make practical steps to make the arrangements work better," he said.

November summit and the budget

Burnham pointed to the UK-EU summit on 20 November as the near-term test. He said he hoped it could produce a deal "which would be good for British food manufacturers, because they've been hit hard by Brexit" — one of the few concrete sectors he named as suffering under the current arrangement.

On domestic politics, he shut down speculation about an early general election, despite polling that suggests Labour is still enjoying a "Burnham bounce." "There is no election coming anytime soon. People may as well put that out of their mind," he said.

On Wednesday's budget, Burnham promised it would offer people and businesses "breathing space" and give Britain "a little bit of light at the end of the tunnel."

For businesses watching the November summit, the signal is that incremental fixes — not a return to the single market or customs union — are the only Brexit changes on the table before the next election.