UK Prime Minister Andy Burnham refused to rule out reversing the 2016 Brexit referendum in which the public voted to leave the European Union, potentially lining up yet another battle over the future of British sovereignty.
Recently installed Prime Minister Burnham, who swept to power last month off the back of a Westminster palace coup against Sir Keir Starmer after parachuting into parliament with the support of just over 25,000 votes in a special election, has said that he will respect the red lines laid out in Labour’s 2024 general election manifesto, despite not personally having been elected on the basis of the set pledges.
Among those promises was a vow not to re-litigate the 2016 Brexit vote, which saw a majority of the British voting public back a withdrawal from the globalist European Union project and a return to national self-determination.
However, according to The Guardian, the new prime minister is already being pressured by backbenchers in his left-wing Labour Party to reverse course and openly embrace the aim of rejoining the EU. When reporters pressed him this week on whether he would campaign on rejoining the bloc at the next general election, Burnham refused to rule out putting the issue back on the ballot.
“Our focus at the moment is on a UK/EU summit which we hope will take place later this year,” Burnham said. “My immediate priority is to build on the good work that Keir did in rebuilding bridges. Because those bridges were broken in the early part of this decade. And Keir did a good job in re-establishing that relationship.
“What we have got to do now is go to the next level in terms of reaching practical agreement that will further boost the British economy. And those issues are the substance of the summit alongside EU requests around youth mobility.”
The issue of backtracking on Brexit may become more pressing if Burnham decides to call a snap election to wrong-foot Reform UK leader Nigel Farage, with Labour enjoying a mild but non-trivial change-of-leadership honeymoon bump in the polls.
However, despite the so-called “Burnham bounce”, Labour is still unlikely to win enough votes to maintain a majority in the House of Commons on their own.
This has sparked speculation within the London press over a potential coalition between Burnham’s Labour and the Liberal Democrats, whose raison d’être in recent years — outside of literal pratfalls — has been opposition to Brexit.
This week, Lib Dem leader Sir Ed Davey said that his party will fight the next general election on the basis of rejoining the European Union’s single market and customs union, which would effectively put the UK economy under the purview of Brussels once again.
Davey has also argued that Britain should join the European Union’s migration pact — effectively surrendering sovereignty over the UK’s borders — in the hopes that it would finally convince France to stop the flow of illegal migrants accross the English Channel. Yet, joining the EU pact would mandate that Britain take in illegals who enter EU nations as recompense.
When questioned this week if he would consider a coalition deal with Burnham and the Labour Party, Sir Ed refused to rule out such an agreement.
“We’ve got a moral responsibility to stop Nigel Farage – and indeed stop Kemi Badenoch giving the keys to No 10 to Nigel Farage – I think there could be that sort of coalition on the right and we’ve got to stop that,” he told the BBC.