More confusion was cast on Andy Burnham’s Brexit position today as a minister insisted there is no desire to ‘reopen the acrimonious debate’ on leaving the EU.
The PM has been talking up his hopes for closer ties with the bloc ahead of a summit with commission chief Ursula von der Leyen next month.
After recently refusing to rule out the next Labour manifesto committing to rejoin, Mr Burnham told MPs last week that he wanted a ‘serious dialogue about the different options for our relationship in the long term’.
The signals have delighted Europhile politicians who have been pushing to reverse the decision taken at the 2016 referendum.
However, some Labour MPs have voiced alarm at the prospect of going back into divisive debates about the UK’s status.
Touring broadcast studios for the Government this morning, science minister Chris McDonald said the premier was only seeking a ‘more stable relationship’.
He suggested Mr Burnham was starting a ‘big conversation’ and was not ‘desperately after one thing or another’.
Andy Burnham has been talking up his hopes for closer ties with the EU ahead of a summit with commission chief Ursula von der Leyen next month
‘I think it’s best to listen to what the Prime Minister said, what his actual words were, and what he wants is a more stable relationship with the EU that will be in our economic benefit,’ Mr McDonald told GB News.
‘I think what we saw over the last two years was Keir Starmer did his EU reset, and that was very much on a case-by-case basis.
‘We managed to negotiate some improvements under the previous terrible deal that was done by Boris Johnson, and now we need something that adds a bit more stability.’
He added: ‘So what the Prime Minister wants is to have a big conversation with the country for people to think about, ”Well, what would our future sort of settled arrangement with the EU look like?”
‘He hasn’t said, or he’s desperately after one thing or another, and we can only do things by consensus as well.
Science minister Chris McDonald told GB News the premier was only seeking a ‘more stable relationship’
‘So I think now is the opportunity for us to have that conversation. But no one wants to reopen the really acrimonious debate that we had in the past. It’s about how we go forward from the position that we’re in now.’
The comment strikes a different tone from Mr Burnham’s mentor Lord Kinnock, who argued last week that the PM ‘obviously’ wants to rejoin the EU.
The Labour ex-leader suggested the premier had only played down the idea of reversing Brexit during the Makerfield by-election because he was focused on ‘winning’.
