In June, Andy Burnham ran for a seat in Parliament promising not to "re-run" the Brexit arguments. In October, as prime minister, he told the Sunday Times it's time for an "honest discussion" about bringing back free movement with the European Union.
Four months. That's not a U-turn. That's a roundabout with a Labour sticker on it.
Here are the facts, per the BBC, The Guardian and LBC. Burnham wants a new relationship with Brussels. He has floated options ranging from joining the single market, which requires free movement, to the customs union, to going "all the way" and rejoining the EU. He wants a "very factual, quite evidence-based debate." He meets EU chiefs at a summit in Brussels on Nov. 20.
The BBC reports that as a candidate in the Makerfield by-election this June, Burnham said he was "not proposing that the UK considers rejoining the EU." Makerfield voted Leave in 2016. Makerfield, it turns out, was the evidence base. Burnham is now debating it.
Labour's own 2024 manifesto ruled out free movement, the single market and the customs union. Burnham has said he'll honor those red lines and that any big change would need a mandate at a general election due by 2029. So the red lines stay, right up until they become a discussion topic.
His case is that EU migration used to be different. "Revolving door migration where people would come and then go back is different," he told the paper, adding that the "balance of migration has changed, hasn't it, since then?"
I've watched presidents, juntas and one self-declared emperor tell their voters the past was better. This is the first time I've seen a man try to sell the open door by promising it revolves.
The numbers, from Britain's Office for National Statistics as cited by The Guardian: net migration was 335,000 in the year to June 2016, the month Britain voted to leave. It peaked at a record 944,000 in the year to March 2023 under a Conservative government. Last year it was 171,000. So the one thing that finally brought the number down, Burnham now wants to talk about undoing. Evidence-based, technically.
Nigel Farage called it "a total betrayal of Brexit Britain and his Makerfield pitch." Shadow home secretary Chris Philp said there "can be no return" to free movement. When the Tories and Reform agree on something within one news cycle, the prime minister has achieved a rare thing in British politics: unity, against himself.
Picture a fictional Makerfield pensioner named Doreen, who voted Leave in 2016, voted Burnham in June because he said he wouldn't relitigate it, and is now being invited to an honest discussion about the thing she already discussed. Twice. With a pencil. Doreen has asked if the honest discussion comes with a refund.
On the sewer scale, this rates three rats out of five. One rat for the manifesto, one for the by-election promise, one for calling it honesty. The other two rats are waiting for the Nov. 20 summit, where they expect to be offered a new relationship.
Andy Burnham promised Makerfield he wouldn't re-run Brexit. He's kept that promise. He's just asking Brussels to hold the stopwatch.
And here's your bill: a U.S. adult passport book costs $130 to renew, per the State Department, which is still the only free-movement deal on offer where somebody actually tells you the price up front.
This article is satire. The Demorat is a parody news site; real facts are drawn from the linked sources, and jokes, invented scenes, and fictional characters are not real.
The real story that inspired this
