Burnham Says Tory Brexit Deal Was Harder Than Voters Were Promised

Prime minister Andy Burnham has argued that the Brexit deal struck by the Conservatives was more extreme than what voters were promised in the 2016 EU referendum, and has told ministers not to air their own views on where relations with Brussels should go next.

Burnham raised the issue at a cabinet meeting on Wednesday, ahead of the budget the chancellor, John Healey, was due to deliver later that day. A Downing Street summary of the meeting gave his remarks on Brexit more prominence than the budget. It said he told ministers the deal left by the previous government had been bad for the UK and had produced a harder Brexit than the one put to voters.

He followed up with a letter to frontbenchers laying out his plans. In it, Burnham said the Conservative deal "was not good enough for Britain" and had led to "a decade of low growth", added red tape for businesses and a weaker ability to control immigration.

The letter also carried a firm instruction on discipline. "It is important that we remain aligned and disciplined as a government in our messaging throughout this period," he wrote. He added that it would not be appropriate for ministers individually to advocate for specific options or to comment on the likely outcome of the process, until a review of longer-term options is complete.

The warning comes after reports that some ministers, including home secretary Shabana Mahmood, are uneasy about a revised deal that could bring back free movement of people between the UK and the EU. Burnham has talked up that possibility.

Burnham described a two-stage approach. The first stage covers initial changes that stay within Labour's 2024 manifesto, which ruled out rejoining the EU's customs union and single market and ruled out reinstating freedom of movement. That process will formally begin when he attends a European summit next month. Anything more substantial would wait until after the next election, and he said he wanted a discussion about what that might involve.

He wrote that both the UK and the EU have changed considerably in the 10 years since the vote, and that any future relationship must rest on practical arrangements that are realistic for both sides. Any fundamental change, he said, "would be for the public to decide and a matter for the next parliament". He stressed that this is government policy to which cabinet collective responsibility applies.

Brexit also dominated his exchanges with Conservative leader Kemi Badenoch at prime minister's questions on Wednesday. Challenged on his plans, Burnham repeated his criticism of the current arrangement and said the UK had been "paralysed by the party opposite" after the referendum, because of the lack of a Conservative plan.

Badenoch replied that Burnham had made use of freedoms that Brexit allowed, such as the ability to remove VAT from energy bills. "What he should be saying is: 'Thank you,'" she said.