Burnham wants UK back in EU within his lifetime

LONDON — Prime Minister Andy Burnham reiterated Monday his desire for the U.K. to rejoin the EU within his lifetime — but ruled out a move to reverse Brexit in the current parliament. Asked by ITV's Good Morning Britain Monday whether he wanted to rejoin the EU, Burnham 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 public, the British public, are the bosses.” At the ruling Labour Party's conference last month, Burnham called for closer links with the EU. He has yet to spell out precise details of the relationship he would seek — but the party's 2024 election-winning manifesto under Keir Starmer ruled out rejoining the single market, customs union or accepting freedom of movement with the bloc. Burnham said Monday that the promises of the 2016 referendum that took Britain out of the EU have not been delivered.

“We got a harder Brexit than was proposed in the referendum campaign,” he said. “It's weakened our economy. It's also weakened our control of immigration and that might surprise people.” But he said: “I'm not proposing rejoining in this Parliament. We're way, way away from that at this particular moment in time. What I am saying is we need to take some practical steps to make the arrangement work better than the arrangement we've got right now.”

The PM's remarks come after he told the Sunday Times that accepting freedom of movement with the bloc should not be off the table in future negotiations. A U.K.-EU summit is scheduled for next month, although that is set to focus tightly on technical tweaks to the existing relationship rather than addressing bigger questions of Britain's future ties to the bloc. Burnham's decision to reignite debate in Britain about the EU has already provoked a bullish response from some of Brexit's leading cheerleaders.

Speaking at a Westminster press conference Monday, Nigel Farage said rejoining the bloc would be “utterly moronic” and argued Brexiteers would win a referendum on reversing the result “very comfortably.” “Listen, Brexit would not have happened if I had not been born — all right, simple as that," the Reform UK leader said Monday. "Yes, there were some Johnny-Come-Latelies. They came in at five minutes to midnight. Am I up for the fight again?

You bet your blooming life I am.” Sam Blewett contributed to this report.