Andy Burnham will use his first Labour conference speech as prime minister to frame Britain’s post-Brexit trajectory as one of “drift and division,” while senior ministers privately concede that rejoining the European Union is now a question of presentation rather than principle. The shift marks a decisive break from the red lines that defined Labour’s last election platform and reflects a calculation that the economic cost of detachment has become politically unsustainable.
A changed mood in Liverpool
The atmosphere at this year’s gathering in Liverpool stands in stark contrast to the cautious triangulation of previous conferences. “The mood has completely changed on this subject,” one cabinet minister told The Update Desk. “There is a lot of momentum around rejoining again. The economic data is there and we are feeling more relaxed about talking about Brexit as being a failure.”
That candour represents a remarkable evolution. When Burnham was mayor of Greater Manchester, he argued publicly for EU membership. A year ago, during a visit to the United Nations in New York, he declined to rule out a rejoining pledge for the next manifesto. Now, with the prime ministerial seal behind him, the conversation has moved from whether to how.
Two distinct approaches are under consideration. The first would place a direct commitment to seek accession talks in the manifesto. The second would employ “more indirect form of words about having a debate” — a formulation designed to test public appetite without handing Nigel Farage and Reform UK a ready-made attack line. “If there was no political risk I think we would rejoin tomorrow,” admitted a second senior minister. “But we have to be mindful of Nigel Farage and revitalising Reform. That said, if we want to grow the economy then we have to rejoin – we all know that.”
The Blair intervention and the reform argument
Former prime minister Sir Tony Blair has added weight to the momentum, arguing recently that Britain should target rejoining a “reformed EU” within a decade. His intervention was described by one minister as “to the point,” particularly on the friction between Brussels’ regulatory approach and Britain’s tech ambitions.
“There are problems with EU regulation on digital technology and artificial intelligence which need to be relaxed,” the minister explained. “We need changes there because the UK is the centre of this technology.” Trade agreements with India and Canada would also require renegotiation, though the same source insisted “the gains of having full access to the EU market would more than make up for that.”
Red lines under pressure
The architecture of Labour’s previous Brexit position — no customs union, no single market, no free movement, no rejoining — is fracturing. “They are holding us back unnecessarily,” one minister said bluntly. David Lammy’s former foreign policy adviser Ben Judah has gone further, calling for a snap election centred on the question of EU return.
Foreign Secretary Ed Miliband offered the most explicit rhetorical shift from the conference stage. “This is our continent, and if there is one lesson that I have seen demonstrated to me again and again in this job, it is this: Europe is not just our geography, but so much more,” he told delegates. “It is how we pursue our values from climate to the Middle East. It’s how we pursue our interests from trade to defence. It’s where we build and protect our alliances, so it is not simply Britain acting alone, but Britain with others. And on economics, on defence, on security, I say to this conference: our future lies in a stronger, deeper partnership with the European Union.”
Chancellor John Healey reinforced the economic argument, attributing current fiscal constraints to “Boris Johnson’s Brexit” and contrasting the government’s room for manoeuvre with the spending capacity of the Blair-Brown years.
The external clock: Made in Europe
Not everyone in government believes the timeline can stretch to the next election. Stella Creasy, chair of the Labour Movement for Europe, warned that the EU’s “Made in Europe” procurement and defence framework could exclude British firms from critical supply chains within months. “There is a real danger we are trapped alone between two tectonic plates of America First and Made in Europe,” a cabinet minister acknowledged.
Another added: “There is an appetite for a more radical approach to Brexit but it will be conditional on what happens with Made in Europe.” The implication is clear: if Brussels advances its strategic autonomy agenda without British input, the political cost of delay will rise sharply.
Creasy has demanded that the government drop its red lines immediately to enable serious negotiations before the next manifesto is even written. “If we want to have a serious conversation with our European counterparts about the challenges we are all facing — the social division, the economic uncertainty, the national security issues — everything must be on the table, and I mean everything: the single market, the customs union, the movement of goods, the people, of services.”
Campaign groups are seizing the moment. Mike Galsworthy of the European Movement called the shift “fantastic news,” arguing that full membership alone would position Britain “front and centre” of a reshaping geopolitical order. Naomi Smith of Best for Britain cited a £92 billion growth dividend from rejoining, framing it as the only route to “bring down the cost of living, keep our country safe and give our children a better future.”
Why it Matters
Labour’s leadership has finally acknowledged what the economic data and shifting public opinion have long suggested: that Brexit’s promise of sovereign agility has delivered instead a structural growth penalty and diplomatic isolation. The prime minister’s conference speech will not announce a rejoining timetable, but it will legitimise the conversation that his predecessors treated as electoral poison. The risk is no longer whether the argument can be won — it is whether the party can move fast enough to prevent the next layer of European integration from hardening around a Britain that chose to stand outside.
