Burnham open to ‘honest discussion’ on EU free movement

The prime minister says he would welcome an “honest discussion” about the prospect of returning to free movement between the UK and European Union.

Speaking to the Sunday Times, Andy Burnham said a new relationship with Brussels could include full EU membership or joining the single market, requiring free movement.

Asked about Burnham’s remarks, Angela Rayner told the BBC’s Sunday with Laura Kuenssberg “you can’t take anything off the table”, adding the prime minister was saying “we’ve got to be pragmatic to get the best deal for Britain and he wants to have the conversation.”

Conservative leader Kemi Badenoch responded that the prime minister “hasn’t thought this through”, while Reform UK’s Robert Jenrick dismissed the idea as “mad”.

Migration dominated debate during the 2016 Brexit campaign, with the Leave campaign raising issues about rules allowing any EU citizen to move to the UK.

Burnham has previously committed to Labour’s 2024 election manifesto which ruled out a return of free movement, single market membership or a customs union.

He has said that any changes would require a mandate at a general election, would is due by 2029.

“I think you have to have a very factual, quite evidence-based debate about this,” he told the Sunday Times, adding he believed the type of migration had changed from revolving door movement of young people.

“Revolving door migration where people would come and then go back is different,” he said. “The balance of migration has changed, hasn’t it, since then? I think we’ve just got to have an honest discussion about those things.”

But he stressed: “I can’t see myself ever recommending anything that would involve joining the euro or Schengen.”

The Schengen Agreement allows passport-free travel across EU countries. The UK was able to keep the pound when it was an EU member, but the bloc has pushed new members to adopt the Euro.

His remarks were made ahead of an EU summit on 20 November in Brussels, where the prime minister is expected to pitch options for a reset of relations with the bloc.

On Sunday with Laura Kuenssberg, Rayner said she wanted to see the best possible deal with the European Union, which may well involve concessions.

“What the prime minister is saying now, and what I want, is that we have an honest conversation about the facts of what the trade-offs are to get the best deal for Britain going forward,” she said.

“The frustration for me in the previous debate we had when we had the referendum is that a lot of those facts didn’t get the airtime… So I would like us to have an honest conversation about what the trade-offs could be and then put that to the people at a general election.”

Writing on X, Badenoch dismissed it as “yet another example of Burnham’s foot in mouth syndrome”.

She added: “Most people who voted for Brexit did so because they didn’t want free movement. Too many politicians have failed to understand the significance and impact of immigration on communities.”

Conservative MP and former chancellor Jeremy Hunt, who backed Remain, warned the Brexit debate was “incredibly divisive” and insisted the current Brexit deal can still be made to work.

“I was at the top of a government that was paralysed for several years while we were trying to wrestle with the implications of that vote and I think, having made the decision, we should stick with it and make the most of it – I think we can make it a success,” he told Kuenssberg.

Pointing to the one million young people not in work or training, he added: “Surely our priority in that situation is to get those jobs filled by the young people we have here instead of parking them on welfare.

“Which is why I think it’s astonishing to lead on the issue of free movement… Something that is actually going to stop young people here getting jobs.”

But Liberal Democrat deputy leader Daisy Cooper told Kuenssberg she believed allowing freedom of movement would be “a really good thing for growth” and pushed for the UK to rejoin the single market, the customs union, and also be involved in the bloc’s defence pact.

The UK currently has “the worst of both worlds” on immigration, she said, as it was excluded from the EU’s “new asylum pact with biometric data” that could be used to “tackle the small boats crisis”.

Reform UK’s economy spokesperson Robert Jenrick told Kuenssberg he had never believed freedom of movement “was a good thing”, despite supporting the Remain position before the 2016 referendum when he was a Conservative MP.

“I think it’s completely mad, the idea that this country needs more immigration,” he said, claiming data shows mass migration “has been a disaster for working people, for Brits”.

“The last thing they want is their wages being undercut by a load of low wage, low-skilled migrants from overseas,” he added.