Andy Burnham has launched a pointed rebuttal to David Cameron’s warning against reopening the Brexit debate, insisting a new agreement with Brussels could deliver the kind of departure from the European Union voters believed they were backing in 2016.
The Prime Minister said a “win-win” deal was possible as he prepared to meet EU leaders in Brussels next week, where he is expected to sign agreements covering food and farming, emissions trading and a youth mobility scheme.
Mr Burnham claimed the package could increase UK GDP by 0.4 per cent, but argued that the potential benefits went beyond the immediate economic gains.
“I believe there is a good deal to be done that could be a win-win for Britain and Europe,” he told reporters at the European Political Community summit in Dublin.
“I think it actually could be more like the Brexit that people thought they were voting for in 2016. I don’t think people thought they were going to get a Brexit as hard as the one that finally came through at the end of 2019.”
He said there was still more negotiating to be done, but suggested the eventual settlement could be “closer to what people voted for at the referendum”.
The remarks amount to a direct challenge to Lord Cameron, who warned Labour against allowing the debate over Britain’s relationship with Europe to become a prolonged argument about rejoining the bloc.
The former Conservative prime minister, who campaigned for Remain before resigning after the referendum result, said reopening the question risked triggering “a long and painful argument” and distracting from the Government’s domestic priorities.
Speaking to Bloomberg’s Mishal Husain, Lord Cameron also rejected the suggestion that Brexit was responsible for Britain’s weak economic performance.
“If you look at the economic problems we have today, I don’t really think they’ve got anything to do with Brexit at all,” he said.
He argued that the country’s problems were instead rooted in “overspending, over-borrowing, over-taxing, over-regulated” public services and excessive spending on working-age welfare.
Mr Burnham dismissed that assessment, arguing that the economic evidence pointed in a different direction.
“I think he is wrong to say that the low growth that we’ve had over the last decade has quote ‘nothing to do with Brexit’. I would say the evidence says otherwise, and indeed the Treasury analysis says otherwise,” he said.
He also questioned Lord Cameron’s motives, suggesting his intervention was more concerned with the future of the Conservative Party than Britain’s national interest.
“It feels like his intervention is more about unity and the Conservative Party than it is about fighting for British interests,” Mr Burnham said.
The former prime minister had previously warned that every British family would be £4,300 a year worse off if the country voted to leave the EU.
Mr Burnham was speaking after a day of meetings with European leaders in Dublin, many of whom he was meeting for the first time. Asked whether his intervention in the debate had helped or hindered negotiations, he insisted it had helped, while acknowledging that significant work remained.
“I think it has helped, but there’s a long way to go,” he said.
He added that he would “fight now, over the days to come, to make sure we get this deal over the line”.
The Brussels agreements could mark a significant step towards closer cooperation, but the political argument over how far Britain should rebuild its relationship with the EU is already gathering pace.
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