France is burning but Andy Burnham still wants drag Britain back into the EU, writes Lee Cohen

France is burning but Andy Burnham still wants drag Britain back into the EU US political commentator Lee Cohen fears the scenes witnessed in France could make their way across the Channel Sign up to the Opinion Newsletter Email address Sign up I agree to receive updates and information about my account, the GB News Community, and related products and services from GB News. By signing up you agree to the Terms and Conditions and Privacy Policy and Community Rules. Thank you for signing up! See the latest from GB News here . Choose GB News on Google - add us as a preferred source Choose GB News Support GB News Champion free speech and independent journalism while unlocking exclusive benefits. Support us Look across the Channel. Then look across the ocean. Britain's choice is that stark — and Andy Burnham is facing the wrong way. Paris burned Saturday, flaring again Sunday evening. An estimated 550,000 in the streets across France. Nearly 2,400 arrested. Almost 1,000 police officers and gendarmes injured. Limoges's 143-year-old city hall torched; shops looted in Paris and Bordeaux. Two are dead: a protester in cardiac arrest, a 22-year-old officer struck by a car in Nantes. On Sunday night Macron finally addressed his nation: "Nothing justifies it, nothing explains it, nothing excuses it." The looters would pay; a review of possible police failings ordered. Anger and shame, he said — the co-pilot of the European project, reduced to promising punishment after the fact. That is the view across the Channel. Now look across the ocean. TRENDING Stories Videos Your Say There stands the Anglosphere: the Transatlantic Relationship, a Washington that calls the relationship "more up" than previously. The President's verdict on Truth Social this weekend: "France is burning." His prescription: "Close your borders and take control, before it is too late." An alliance bound by language, law and liberty. Instead of aligning with a suicidal Europe, Britain should put its effort into the transatlantic relationship. That is the choice. And Andy Burnham is choosing the flames. On 30 September your Prime Minister laid out his menu on the BBC. Stay as we are. A customs union. The single market. Or — his words — "go all the way": full rejoining of the European Union. Brexit, he said, has "done more harm than good." On 12 October he told MPs the status quo is "not good enough." His summit with EU leaders is set for 20 November. He will not rule out a referendum pledge in a future manifesto. Missing from the menu: no deeper Atlantic alliance, no word about the Anglosphere. The Prime Minister looks at a burning continent and sees Britain's future. He looks at a willing America and sees nothing. Andy Burnham has been told to give up on his EU ambitions | PA The conference speech, with its ten-year plan to reopen the settled question; the claim that Russia interfered in the 2016 referendum — subsequently qualified as attempted interference, not proof that it changed the result — the referendum delegitimised by a man who lost the argument; the refusal to rule anything out. And the pattern runs deeper than Brussels: the non-crime hate incidents, recommended for replacement this March by recording qualifying incidents as "anti-social behaviour with a prejudice qualifier", the files still kept. Since I am American, allow me to suggest a parallel. My country exists for one reason: we refused to be governed by a distant power that taxed us without representing us, that legislated for us without consulting us, that treated our charters as suggestions. In 1776 we did not petition for better terms. We left. George Washington, in his farewell, sounded the alarm against surrendering dearly bought independence to the management of others. LATEST DEVELOPMENTS Labour’s bonkers branflakes tax will punish Brits while doing nothing to tackle obesity – Emma Woolf Alastair Stewart: A Good Week at Home, Family Celebrations and a Lesson from Liberal History Britain cannot defend itself if it cannot feed itself, warns Arlene Foster France is burning but Andy Burnham still wants drag Britain back into the EU, writes Lee Cohen | REUTERS We have all seen how this story goes. It ends in independence, not in re-entry. As a concerned friend of Britain, watching your Prime Minister volunteer for the arrangement my countrymen took up arms to escape. Membership with powers shared beyond Westminster. Migration obligations accepted through membership. Bills whose benefits remain contested. That is the offer. It always was. "But the polls," comes the objection. "Fifty-seven to thirty for rejoin." Very well: polls are not votes — ask anyone who stayed up for 2016. This one was commissioned by the European Movement UK, a rejoin campaign. And the Union Mr Burnham dreams of rejoining is not the Union of 2016. It is a bloc where the co-pilot of the project cannot keep order in his own capital. Look at France this weekend and ask yourself: is this a club, or a caution? Trump has named what he believes is the cause: immigration. They were warned. Nobody listened. Let's not mistake this for a debate about trade friction. It is about who governs Britain — and which way Britain faces. The 17.4 million who voted Leave did not vote for a ten-year cooling-off period. They rightly voted to take back control — and they meant it. The good news is that Britain has been here before, and refused. Reform UK and the Conservatives are organising the resistance: both parties have opposed Burnham's reopening of the membership question ahead of the November summit. The British people have a habit of answering plainly. France looked away. Britain does not have to. Look across the Channel, and you see the warning. Across the ocean, and you see a far sounder alternative. The door marked "Rejoin" opens only toward destruction. 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