Andy Burnham appeared to leave the door open to reversing Brexit as he failed to rule out putting a pledge to rejoin the EU in Labour’s next manifesto.
It comes hours before the prime minister will tell world leaders in his speech to the United Nations General Assembly in New York that Britain is entering a new era. He said he would point to last decade “with Brexit and turbulence – and say we’re moving beyond that”.
Asked directly by The Independent if he could rule out a promise to rejoin the bloc in his party’s manifesto, Mr Burnham said it was a question “for another day”.
His new minister for European relations Hamish Falconer has also failed to exclude the possibility of a manifesto promise to rejoin a number of times in recent months.
Support for re-entering the EU is now at an all time high at 61 per cent, leading polling expert Sir John Curtice told The Independent earlier this month, while a poll this weekend showed that almost every constituency in the UK now supports reversing Brexit.
Mr Burnham said his focus was on a UK-EU summit due to be held later this year, which he said would help repair bridges that were “broken” by the early part of this decade.
He said he wanted to strike a “practical agreement” with the EU, which would offer a boost to the British economy, although he added he had concerns the EU’s new Made in Europe policy could “affect British industry and British supply chains”.
He said he would raise concerns with the president of the European Commission Ursula von der Leyen when they meet in New York on Tuesday.
Mr Burnham has previously said he is in favour of the UK re-entering the EU and is seeking a “deeper relationship” with the bloc.
But he has also said he respects democracy and does not want to refight the Brexit battles of the past.
However, including a pledge to rejoin in Labour's manifesto would in theory give the PM a mandate for the policy from the British people.
In July, Mr Falconer also failed to rule out putting a promise to rejoin the EU in Labour’s next manifesto.
Earlier this month, during a heated Commons exchange, he was again pressed several times to directly rule out rejoin appearing in the manifesto, but he refused, instead saying he wanted to "go further and faster" in improving the Brexit deal left by the Conservative Party.
While support for rejoining the EU is at its highest level since the Brexit vote, Sir John has also warned political leaders need to seize the opportunity or it will all come to nothing.
He said public opinion had shifted despite a relative silence from many parties and “therefore, if you were to start to make the argument... you should be able to move the dial further”.
It emerged last weekend that all but four constituencies in Great Britain would support reversing Brexit and rejoining the EU, new constituency-level polling of 11,927 UK voters found.
Mr Burnham also hit out at “outside actors” seeking to manipulate democracy when asked if he wanted the UK to become an ‘associate member’ of the EU after the bloc made an historic offer to Canada.
He said: “The European Union made it clear that that wasn’t open to us.
“On the wider point (Brexit) - this will be part of my speech tomorrow. I’m reflecting in that last decade, what we’ve experienced is when that turbulence comes when outside actors seek to manipulate, to distort facts, influence the British democratic process.
“Going into the next decade we need to be clear-eyed about that and become stronger and more on the front foot about challenging that. Perhaps Britain can say we have experienced some of the turbulence before others in terms of the politics of recent times. We need to be clearer where outside forces, our enemies, are trying to manipulate that opinion and feeling to serve their interests, not ours.”
But he said the UK had “considerable support” among EU member states over its concerns around Made in Europe.
“We are making the argument ‘we are not your enemies’ here, “ he said. “We are not the problem. Made in Europe is dealing with a different problem. We are making the argument that let's avoid collateral damage.”
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