On the face of it, it looks like our Prime Minister can’t help himself. Officials in Number 10 spent the start of their weeks scrambling to “clarify” the Government’s position on freedom of movement after Andy Burnham yet again gave a weekend interview sounding like a Brexit re-run was on the cards. Our straight-talking, no-filter PM seems unwilling to be constrained by silly things like manifesto pledges or promises to voters to not “go there” again with the European Union.
But don’t be fooled – this political game of cat and mouse being played between Burnham and his spads is not as accidental as it looks. Burnham’s desire to show a little ankle to Remainers by talking about “a closer relationship” goes far enough to get Europhiles hot under the collar, but is then safely checked by civil servants with assurances and careful backpedaling. It’s a tiresome routine that many in the Labour Party have been playing since the 2016 vote to leave the European Union was announced: a wink and a nudge to Brexit haters to keep them on side. The difference is that, this time, it all feels a bit more concrete.
The problem Burnham faces is that he has, in part, built his identity around a caricature of the “ordinary man” politician – the one who understands the disaffected of the North and the disgruntled of the Red Wall. But a great many of these people left Labour over their sneering and betrayal of the Brexit vote. In fact, he explicitly promised voters that he would not “re-run” the Brexit referendum. But what’s a few electoral pledges between friends, eh?
Burnham might be playacting as salt-of-the-earth, but his political allegiance is squarely rooted in the political establishment, one which, let’s remember, was almost completely united in its hatred and regret of the vote to Leave. In opening the prospect of a second referendum – even some kind of soft return with pacts made in Brussels – Burnham risks showing his true face.
Take it from a die-hard Brexiteer Burnham, this might not be the play you think it is. Reopening the Brexit wars is not the easy win some deluded Lib Dems and salivating podcast hosts imagine it to be. Support for Reform might have stumbled in the last few months, but only because the party seems to have lost its focus. A fight for the spirit of Brexit Britain could be all Nigel Farage needs to regain order and position Reform as the only party that can defend the largest and most consequential vote in recent British political history. And that’s not even taking into account the millions of reasonable, sensible Remain voters out there who understand the democratic implications of a Brexit betrayal.
No, support on X or among the chattering classes for a “re-framing” – what a disingenuous term – of our relationship with the EU does not translate into support out in the polling booth for another bitter fight. Perhaps most importantly, Burnham’s desire to turn back the clock reveals how little of Labour’s plans for the economy are future-oriented. Is the only solution our government has to solve our problems with the economy to rejoin the EU, if only a little bit here and there? Do the pre-Brexit issues of the economic crash, years of austerity, stagnation and the deliberate growth-squashing of green policies not factor in, or will signing back up for freedom of movement wave a magic wand and wish away all those underlying factors?
In one way, many dread the prospect of a re-run of the Brexit battle. The years following the Brexit vote were vicious, revealing a shocking class hatred at the heart of polite British society who were willing to talk about their fellow citizens in the lowest of terms. It wasn’t pleasant to be a part of.
But, in another way, perhaps Burnham is right – there is unfinished business when it comes to Brexit. The 2016 referendum vote has been denied, delayed and discredited for the 10 short years of its life, and yet its very existence stirred up the moribund state of British politics, creating new opportunities for different thinking. So keep showing ankle Burnham, but you risk getting it bitten.