Former Brexit negotiator now open to scrapping Labour’s EU red lines

LONDON — Architects of the U.K.’s post-Brexit “red lines” now back a rethink on the EU relations strictures at the next election. Nick Thomas-Symonds, who served as former Prime Minister Keir Starmer’s top negotiator with Brussels, said that Britain should be open to getting rid of the boundaries in the interest of economic growth. The former Cabinet minister, who led “reset” talks with the EU until July, was one of the staunchest defenders of the red lines — which rule out rejoining the single market, the customs union and restoring freedom of movement.

Labour campaigned and won the 2024 general election on those promises as it sought to move the Brexit conversation on after years of fractious debate. Thomas-Symonds is the latest Starmer ally to express openness to dropping those restrictions in Labour's manifesto at the next election (which must be held before the end of summer 2029). The comments further demonstrate the shift in opinion in the Labour Party, and its belief that public sentiment has moved with it.

Prime Minister Andy Burnham will meet with continental leaders at a meeting of the European Political Community in Dublin Thursday to help progress another incremental “reset” deal with Brussels that should be signed at a EU-U.K. summit in Brussels. U.K. Prime Minister Andy Burnham pledged to put Britain on a "new path" by rejecting 40 years of privatisation, austerity, and Brexit on the final day of the Labour Party conference at Liverpool Experience Campus on Sept. 30, 2026. | Ian Forsyth/Getty Images Around that Nov. 20 summit, the prime minister has committed to go further in setting out what he thinks the options are for future relations with the bloc.

He hasn’t taken the option of Britain fully rejoining the EU off the table. “We do need to have a debate now about what we want to do going forward,” Thomas-Symonds said in an interview in his office in parliament on Tuesday. The MP for Torfaen said that during his time as a Cabinet Office minister he had frequent conversations with British and European businesses about the post-Brexit red tape holding them back. “Now that is not helping us in terms of growing the economy.

So the kind of growth potential is significant,” he added. “So, given the status quo is not working in the way that it should be, given I think where public opinion is as well, I don't think anyone was interested in another Brexit election in 2024 — but certainly now where public opinion is as well, I think it's absolutely right to have a debate now about these different options that are available to us.” Thomas-Symonds’ comments come after Chris Ward — a former Cabinet Office minister and long-time political aide to Starmer who helped draw up the red lines — said those red lines deserve a “ dignified retirement .”

Rachel Reeves, who was Starmer's chief finance minister, said this month that Britain should go back into the EU — comments which would have been impossible to voice while serving in his administration. Veteran Brexiteer Nigel Farage has called Burnham’s approach a “total betrayal” and hopes it could reinvigorate his Reform UK party — which has been on a downward trajectory in the polls. “I think I probably know the pitfalls of it more than most,” said Thomas-Symonds of escalating the Brexit conversation.

“But this is a necessary debate to have because we do need to reach a position to put the future relationship with the European Union on a firm footing.” But he called for an “open debate” and for the costs and benefits of the various options for a closer relationship with the EU to be transparently laid out. Britain could continue to try to broker bespoke arrangements, rejoin the customs union, single market, or the bloc itself. “What we need to see is all these things set out with the trade-offs because we can't just have a debate in the abstract again,” said Thomas-Symonds, who returned to the backbenches after Burnham took over from Starmer.

Burnham appointed Hamish Falconer as his minister for EU relations. Burnham's decision to trigger the EU debate is facing skepticism in his own Cabinet, where some ministers are sensitive to reopening the old wounds of the Brexit debate. Business Secretary Jonathan Reynolds and Home Secretary Shabana Mahmood have both historically been hesitant about re-litigating Brexit battles. Chancellor John Healey put a dampener on Burnham’s grander hopes that Britain will rejoin the EU in his lifetime, telling Channel 4 News last month that he does not expect that to happen.