Prime Minister Andy Burnham with Ireland’s Micheál Martin (Image: Getty)
Andy Burnham’s reset with the EU is “doomed to fail”, the Tories have warned.
Alex Burghart, Shadow Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster, accused the Prime Minister of having “panicked” meetings to undo Sir Keir Starmer’s EU promises.
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The Prime Minister pushed for deeper ties between the UK and the European Union during a meeting with his Irish counterpart, Taoiseach Micheál Martin, on Friday.
Meanwhile, on Friday, Chancellor John Healey pressed for the UK not to be shut out of the EU’s “made in Europe” plan during a meeting with EU finance ministers in Dublin.
Mr Burghart said: “It is clear that Labour’s so-called ‘EU reset’ is not going as planned, with Andy Burnham having to hold panicked meetings with European leaders to row back on the red tape and regulations that Keir Starmer has happily ceded to the European Union.
“This ‘reset’ is doomed to fail. It will not grow the economy and will harm industry and businesses across our country. But it doesn’t have to be this way.”
Mr Martin became the first international leader to visit No 10 North on Friday, where he told the Prime Minister he looked forward to the UK having a “stronger and closer” relationship with the EU.
A Downing Street spokeswoman said the pair also looked ahead to the UK’s hosting of the next UK-Ireland Summit in the first half of 2027 and “agreed its importance in working together across priorities, including security and trade”.
The summit is aimed at settling deals on food and drink, linking carbon trading schemes and closer defence co-operation, as well as on a youth mobility scheme, where Brussels is seeking lower tuition fees for EU students at UK universities.
Meanwhile, Mr Healey told his counterparts not to threaten the UK-EU reset with their “Made in Europe” plans, which are designed to protect the continent’s manufacturing from global competition, especially from China.
Mr Burnham told French president Emmanuel Macron earlier this month that the “buy European” programme “could pose significant challenges” for UK industry.
The Prime Minister has said he wants closer ties with the bloc, building on his predecessor Sir Keir’s work to reset the relationship.
But he is sticking with the 2024 Labour manifesto’s “red lines” of not returning to the customs union or the single market or allowing free movement.
Mr Healey also said: “To me, closer ties with the EU means British businesses – wherever they are based across the UK – get better access to both the supply chains and the customers they need to grow.”
Andy Burnham’s EU Reset Faces Major Test as Disputes Grow
Andy Burnham’s attempt to reshape Britain’s relationship with the European Union is facing an early and potentially difficult test, with disagreements over European industrial policy threatening to complicate the government’s broader plans for a post-Brexit “reset”.
The prime minister has repeatedly said he wants closer relations with Brussels, arguing that Britain can improve trade, security and cooperation with European neighbours without immediately reversing Brexit.
But the latest dispute over the European Union’s proposed “Made in Europe” policy has exposed a central problem: the UK wants greater access to the European market while remaining outside the single market and customs union.
Conservative politicians have seized on that tension to argue that Burnham’s approach cannot deliver what Labour promised.
Alex Burghart, the Conservative shadow chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster, described the government’s approach as “doomed to fail” and accused Burnham of holding “panicked meetings” with European leaders. Those are political criticisms rather than established assessments of the negotiations.
The actual negotiations are considerably more complicated.
Burnham’s attempt to rebuild relations
Burnham inherited a relationship with Brussels that had already begun changing under his predecessor, Keir Starmer.
The Labour government had sought closer cooperation with the EU on areas including food and agricultural trade, youth mobility and security while maintaining several important Brexit red lines.
Burnham has continued that approach.
In September, he met Irish Taoiseach Micheál Martin and reaffirmed the government’s intention to build a closer relationship with European partners. Downing Street said the two leaders discussed cooperation on security and trade and looked ahead to the UK-Ireland summit expected in the first half of 2027.
The government is also working towards a broader UK-EU summit later this year.
But the negotiations have encountered an unexpected obstacle.
The “Made in Europe” problem
The European Commission is developing legislation intended to strengthen European manufacturing and reduce dependence on Chinese industrial supply chains.
The proposed measures could give European companies an advantage in areas such as public procurement and strategic industries.
For Britain, the concern is straightforward.
The UK is outside the EU, so British companies could potentially find themselves excluded from contracts or supply chains that favour companies regarded as European.
That is why Burnham has made the issue a priority.
During his trip to New York for the United Nations General Assembly, he was expected to raise the matter directly with European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen.
Burnham argued that Britain and the EU face many of the same economic challenges and said the EU should not treat Britain as an adversary.
He also warned of potential “collateral damage” to British industry.
That position demonstrates that the reset is not simply about Britain asking Brussels for concessions.
The UK government is also demanding changes to European policy where it believes British companies could be disadvantaged.
Why the dispute matters
The disagreement matters because the “Made in Europe” legislation could become a test of how far the EU is prepared to accommodate a country that has left the bloc.
European policymakers have their own objectives.
Brussels is trying to protect European industry from increasing competition from China and strengthen domestic manufacturing capacity.
That means the EU has an incentive to prioritise European companies.
Britain, meanwhile, wants to remain a close economic partner without becoming a member of the single market or customs union.
That creates an inherent negotiating difficulty.
The Guardian reported that the UK government wanted the proposed industrial legislation placed on the agenda for the wider reset negotiations. British officials were concerned that the policy could restrict access for UK businesses to important European contracts.
The same report said several EU countries were sympathetic to some form of UK inclusion, while France remained less convinced.
That means the debate inside Europe is not necessarily uniform.
Burnham’s Brexit position
The prime minister’s position on Brexit has attracted additional attention because of his comments about Britain’s longer-term relationship with Europe.
In September, Burnham declined to rule out the possibility that a future Labour manifesto could include a commitment to rejoin the EU.
However, he did not announce such a policy.
Instead, he said his immediate priority was rebuilding the relationship and securing practical agreements that could benefit Britain’s economy.
The Guardian reported that Burnham said questions about rejoining the EU were “for another day” while emphasising that the government’s current focus was a closer practical relationship.
That distinction is important.
The current government position remains that Britain is not seeking to rejoin the EU, the customs union or the single market during the present parliamentary period.
Burnham’s decision not to rule out a future change is therefore different from announcing a policy of reversing Brexit.
It nevertheless provides political opponents with an opportunity to argue that the government’s longer-term direction is uncertain.
What do voters want?
There is also evidence that public attitudes towards Britain’s relationship with Europe have changed since the 2016 referendum.
Research reported by The Independent in September found that 56% of respondents supported Burnham going beyond Labour’s existing Brexit red lines, while 16% preferred either maintaining the status quo or moving towards greater divergence. The same research found that 46% said they would vote for Britain to rejoin the EU, compared with 29% who said they would remain outside.
Those figures should be interpreted carefully.
Polling measures opinion at a particular point in time and does not establish that voters have reached a settled consensus on Britain’s future relationship with Europe.
The same research found that respondents had concerns about trade-offs involving sovereignty, migration and the process by which future changes should be decided.
That helps explain why Burnham has so far emphasised practical cooperation rather than an immediate debate about membership.
The argument from Conservative critics
Conservative opposition politicians have nevertheless portrayed the EU reset as evidence of a broader problem with Labour’s European policy.
Burghart argued that the government was attempting to repair problems created by its own approach to European regulation.
He claimed the reset would increase regulatory burdens without providing sufficient economic benefits.
The Conservative position is that Britain should maintain greater regulatory independence and use that freedom to pursue its own economic strategy.
That is a political argument rather than an established outcome.
There is currently no evidence that the entire EU reset has definitively failed, nor can the economic consequences of the government’s negotiations be known before agreements are concluded and implemented.
The economic argument for closer ties
Supporters of the reset point to Britain’s geographic and economic relationship with Europe.
The EU remains one of Britain’s most important trading partners, and businesses on both sides of the Channel continue to face additional barriers compared with the period before Brexit.
Recent research cited by the IPPR estimated that the absence of an agreement aligning certain product testing standards had cost UK exporters billions of pounds annually since post-Brexit arrangements came into force.
The think tank estimated lost revenue of between £3.7 billion and £6.5 billion per year.
That estimate is an analysis by a think tank, not an official government calculation, and its methodology and assumptions are therefore important when interpreting the figure.
Nevertheless, it illustrates why Labour ministers regard improving market access as economically significant.
The youth mobility question
Youth mobility is another important part of the negotiations.
The EU has pushed for an arrangement allowing younger Europeans and Britons to live, study and work across borders under agreed conditions.
For Labour, such an agreement could help universities, businesses and young people while stopping short of restoring general free movement.
The issue is politically sensitive because free movement was one of the most prominent areas of dispute during the Brexit process.
A youth mobility agreement would therefore have to be carefully designed and communicated.
It could provide some of the practical benefits of easier movement without recreating the entire pre-Brexit system.
Why the reset could take time
The latest dispute demonstrates that a UK-EU reset cannot simply be negotiated through goodwill.
Both sides have different interests.
Britain wants better market access, fewer trade barriers and stronger security cooperation while maintaining regulatory independence in key areas.
The EU wants closer cooperation but also wants to protect its own industries and ensure that non-member countries do not receive all the advantages of membership without accepting comparable obligations.
Those positions do not necessarily make agreement impossible.
They do, however, make negotiations complicated.
The planned summit could therefore become an important test of whether the two sides can turn political statements about a closer relationship into concrete agreements.
A setback or a normal negotiation?
Describing the reset as “doomed to fail” goes beyond what the available evidence currently demonstrates.
There are clearly disagreements.
The “Made in Europe” policy has created friction. The timetable for a new summit remains uncertain. Questions remain over youth mobility, food and drink trade and industrial access.
But there are also areas where both sides continue to express interest in cooperation.
Burnham has maintained dialogue with European leaders, while EU officials continue to negotiate with British ministers.
The central issue is therefore not whether disagreement exists.
It is whether those disagreements can be converted into negotiated compromises.
For Burnham, the challenge is particularly delicate.
He must demonstrate that closer relations with Europe can produce practical economic benefits while maintaining the Brexit boundaries that Labour has previously promised to respect.
At the same time, he faces pressure from politicians who want Britain to move further towards Europe and from opponents who argue that the government is moving too far.
His comments about potentially revisiting Brexit in a future manifesto have added another layer to the debate, but they should not be confused with an announced policy to rejoin the EU.
For now, the EU reset remains a work in progress.
The dispute over “Made in Europe” is serious because it touches directly on British industrial interests and exposes the limitations of Britain’s position outside the EU.
But whether it becomes a lasting breakdown or simply another difficult stage in negotiations remains to be determined.
The next major test will be whether London and Brussels can agree on practical arrangements that improve economic and security cooperation while accommodating their different interests.
Until those negotiations produce concrete agreements, claims that the reset has already succeeded or failed remain political interpretations rather than settled fac