Angela Rayner has defended the Prime Minister’s call for an “honest conversation” about the possibility of restoring free movement between the UK and the European Union.
As Labour faced accusations of “betrayal”, the Housing Secretary insisted that Andy Burnham was not seeking to reopen the arguments of the 2016 referendum, despite advocating a closer future relationship with the EU.
Ms Rayner said the discussion formed part of the Prime Minister’s wider effort to “tackle the big issues” and “bring the country together”.
In a newspaper interview, Mr Burnham said he wanted an “honest discussion” about whether the UK could return to free movement with the EU.
Restoring the EU’s free movement rules would give citizens of all 28 member states the right to enter and live in Britain, triggering a fierce response from the Conservatives and Reform UK.
Reform leader Nigel Farage described the proposal as a “total betrayal” of Brexit and of commitments made by Mr Burnham during his Makerfield by-election campaign.
Writing on social media, Mr Farage said: “This is a total betrayal of Brexit Britain and his Makerfield pitch. He is also deluded to say immigration was different when we were members of the EU. We will fight this dishonesty.”
Jeremy Hunt, the former Conservative chancellor, said a return to free movement would deliver a “hammer blow” to Labour’s plans to tackle youth unemployment and reduce the growing welfare bill.
Speaking to the BBC’s Laura Kuenssberg, he said: “If I had any cornflakes this morning I would have choked on them. I was absolutely astonished.
“We have a million people not in employment, education or training – young people – and the Government says it’s serious about getting them back into work,” he added.
“To suddenly say you are prepared to negotiate allowing people from all over Europe to come and take those jobs, I think it will be a hammer blow to those plans to get people off welfare and into work.”
Angela Rayner has defended the Prime Minister’s call for an “honest conversation” about restoring EU free movement rules as Labour faced accusations of “betrayal”.
The Housing Secretary insisted Andy Burnham was not attempting to revive the arguments of the 2016 referendum, despite calling for a new relationship with the EU.
The Prime Minister has set out plans to examine a range of options for Britain’s long-term relationship with the EU, saying the “status quo is not good enough”.
He made clear today that keeping the UK outside the EU’s free movement system would not be treated as a red line in negotiations with Brussels.
“I think you have to have a very factual, quite evidence-based debate about this,” he told the newspaper.
Mr Burnham also argued that the pattern of legal migration seen while the UK was an EU member differed from the challenges facing the country today.
“It was generally younger people, not always, but spending a few years, then going back,” he said. “And obviously the ease of that worked for British people as well.”
Appearing on the BBC’s Sunday with Laura Kuenssberg programme, Ms Rayner was questioned about Mr Burnham’s comments ahead of the Makerfield campaign, during which he warned that “the last thing we should do right now is re-run those arguments” about Brexit.
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With a UK-EU summit scheduled for November 20, Ms Rayner said the Prime Minister was “very clear” that Britain should enter the meeting ready for “an honest conversation about how Britain can get the best deal going forward for the next decade”.
‘We’re saying, as we go forward into the future, we have a summit coming up, we have a ten-year plan that we’re writing,’ the Cabinet minister added.
‘It’s ten years on since we left the European Union. We can’t go backwards.
‘That’s not a possibility for us. We have to go forwards, and therefore you have to look at what that future relationship will look like.’
She continued: ‘I want to see the best deal for the people of my constituency and for Britain.
‘We haven’t got the best deal at the moment because we’ve seen exports reduced by 20 per cent, we’ve seen the red tape and the friction that has meant that a lot of our businesses are not able to trade in the way that they would like with our biggest trading partners.
‘So, I would like us to have an honest conversation about what the trade-offs could be and then put that to the people at a general election.’
Ms Rayner repeatedly declined to say whether she wanted the country to return to EU free movement rules herself.
But she defended the PM’s stance as part of his efforts at ‘bringing the country together’.
‘The PM is clear he wants to have the conversation, he’s tackling the big issues – like the national care service he wants to introduce, he’s talked about the changes to the triple lock,’ she said.
‘This is part of a wider programme… bringing the country together, thinking about where the country goes into the future, not the old arguments of the past.’
Tory leader Kemi Badenoch said on social media: ‘This is yet another example of Burnham’s foot-in-mouth syndrome. He hasn’t thought this through or the implications.
‘Most people who voted for Brexit did so because they didn’t want free movement. Too many politicians have failed to understand the significance and impact of immigration on communities.
‘We have had more than enough experience of what happens when politicians (including previous Conservative governments) promise control but fail to deliver it. The answer is to learn from those mistakes, not reopen free movement.’
Lord Walker, the boss of supermarket Iceland and a Labour peer, told Times Radio it would be ‘dangerous precedent’ to ‘reopen old wounds’ around Brexit.
‘We’ve been there, done that, and I think that’s a very dangerous precedent if you don’t like the answer of a referendum to go back and keep asking the same question,’ he said.
‘What does that mean for Scottish independence, for example? I just do not think we want to reopen those old wounds.’
Lord Walker also warned that ‘opening up our borders’ will not help ‘the one million young people that are out of work’.