Andy Burnham has faced accusations of betraying British workers after signalling that the Government could be willing to revisit free movement with the European Union as part of a closer relationship with Brussels.
The Prime Minister indicated that Labour’s Brexit “red lines” could be suspended to secure a new deal, while Angela Rayner suggested Britain could return to the EU single market without another referendum.
The intervention provoked warnings that restoring free movement would damage the employment prospects of young people in Britain and reopen one of the country’s most divisive political disputes.
Nigel Farage, the Reform leader, accused Mr Burnham of a “complete betrayal” of the 2016 referendum, which he said the Prime Minister had pledged to respect while campaigning to return to Parliament.
“Freedom of movement would undercut working people’s wages with cheap foreign labour – a complete betrayal of what the British people want and voted for,” Mr Farage said.
Kemi Badenoch described the intervention as “yet another example of Burnham’s foot-in-mouth syndrome”, adding: “He hasn’t thought this through or the implications.”
The Conservative leader acknowledged previous Tory mistakes on immigration but said: “The answer is to learn from those mistakes, not reopen free movement.”
Warnings over free movement and jobs
Mr Burnham acknowledged that free movement had been associated with “significant challenges”, but argued that immigration before Brexit had not been “as difficult” as the wave which followed.
He also described the former system as a “revolving door” in which “people would come and then go back”, despite more than four million EU citizens being granted settled status in the UK when Britain left the bloc.
Diplomatic sources said accepting free movement would be essential to rejoining the single market or returning to full EU membership. Ms Rayner stressed that Labour had not yet settled on a new relationship with Brussels.
Sir Jeremy Hunt, the former Conservative chancellor who backed Remain in the referendum, said Britain had one million young people not in employment, education or training.
“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,” he said.
Richard Walker, Labour’s former cost of living tsar, said reopening the issue would be a mistake. The Iceland supermarket boss asked: “What is it going to do opening up our labour markets to the whole of Europe?”
Ms Rayner said the Prime Minister wanted an “honest conversation” before a UK-EU summit in Brussels, where the Government plans to discuss the future relationship with Europe.
She denied that Mr Burnham was breaking Labour’s election pledges on Brexit, saying: “We have to go forwards, and therefore you have to look at what that future relationship will look like.”
