Brexit has not “played out” like it was promised to the public, has weakened the economy and the current deal is not good enough, Andy Burnham has said, but he ruled out major changes in the current parliament.
The prime minister said Britain had ended up with a “harder Brexit than was proposed in the referendum campaign” and it had not helped to control the small boats crisis. Backing the home secretary’s tougher immigration rules, he said Brexit had weakened the UK’s ability to control its borders as it could no longer send people back to Europe.
When asked directly on Monday whether he wanted Britain to rejoin the EU, Burnham told Good Morning Britain: “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.”
Explaining why he even brought up the possibility of “going all the way” in terms of closer relations with the EU, Burnham said: “Looking back at Brexit … I don’t think it has played out as people said it would at the time. We got a harder Brexit than was proposed in the referendum campaign.
“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.”
He added: “I am not going to say at the moment that the deal we’ve got is good enough for Britain. I don’t think it is good enough.”
Burnham said he would not “move away from the red lines in Labour’s manifesto”, adding: “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.”
There are concerns among Labour MPs who represent leave voting constituencies in the north of the England and the Midlands that reopening the Brexit debate could create opportunities fro Reform UK.
On the fact that 65% of his constituents in Makerfield voted to leave the EU, the prime minister said: “I said we wouldn’t rerun the referendum and that’s not what I’ doing. 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.”
Emphasising the negative impact Brexit had had on Britain’s control of immigration, the Labour leader said: “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.”
The prime minister said he hoped the UK-EU summit on 20 November could yield a deal “which would be good for British food manufacturers because they’ve been hit hard by Brexit”.
He said he backed “the principle” of the home secretary’s controversial plan to make foreign workers wait 15 years to get permanent residency.
Burnham said Shabana Mahmood was right to pursue the plans based on the principle that “settlement is a right to be earned not just something that is granted automatically”.
He also ruled out calling an early general election, despite polling suggesting Labour was still enjoying a “Burnham bounce”. “There is no election coming anytime soon. People may as well put that out of their mind.”
On Wednesday’s budget, Burnham said it would offer people and businesses “breathing space”, claiming it would give Britain “a little bit of light at the end of the tunnel”.