26 Oct 2026, 03:10 PM

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PM says talking about changing the relationship with the bloc would not be divisive but ‘can start to bring people together’Good morning. Andy Burnham started budget week with an interview on ITV’s Good Morning Britain with Susanna Reid and Richard Madeley. There were plenty of decent lines in it, but some of his most intriguing comments were about Brexit. Yesterday opposition parties (and even in private some Labour MPs) were criticising the PM for saying in a Sunday Times interview that he would be willing to consider going into the next election proposing accepting EU free movement rules. This was treated as if it was a novel outrage – even though at Labour conference Burnham announced that rejoining the EU could end up as the best option to emerge from his proposed renegotiation of the Brexit settlement, which of course would automatically involve accepting free movement.Neil Kinnock said recently he thought Burnham was determined to take Britain back in the EU, but in his interview this morning Burnham insisted that he was not dogmatic in that way. When Madeley asked him if he saw himself as someone “destined” to be the PM that would take Britain back in, Burnham replied:Honestly, I don’t.I see it as my job to be pragmatic about the whole situation. Can I make it work better? Can I add growth to the British economy?I’ve said – I’m going to be honest – in my lifetime I would like to see that happen, but I am not going to move ahead of the public. I am not going to dictate in terms of my own opinions here. You have to make sure that the British public are the bosses here.And [to] go back to Brexit, by just talking about it in a more practical way, by being honest about it … that can start to bring people together who voted in different ways.The divides that we’ve lived through in the last decade really do need to end, and we need to pull people together …My mind is not on that [an early election]. I don’t know if that is coming over here, but it genuinely is not on that. There is no election coming anytime soon. People may as well just put that out of their mind. Continue reading...

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