ANALYSIS – MARTYN BROWN: The Labour leader is heading to Brussels next week to strike a new deal
Ursula von der Leyen and Andy Burnham (Image: Getty)
The mask hasn’t so much as slipped, it has completely fallen off. Andy Burnham’s masterplan for a so-called “EU reset” is nothing more than a slow-motion surrender, carefully dressed up as a diplomatic negotiation.
Under the guise of easing cost-of-living pressures and cutting border red tape on food, agricultural products, and trade, the Labour leader is quietly preparing to sell out Britain’s hard-won independence. What is being pitched as practical deal-making ahead of upcoming summits in Brussels is in reality a step-by-step unraveling of Brexit. Brexiteers like Nigel Farage and former cabinet ministers have rightly sounded the alarm.
Andy Burnham discusses Brexit and closer ties to EU
Refusing to rule out taking Britain back into the bloc or binding the UK back to European regulations represents a direct betrayal of the country’s historic democratic vote. As Sir John Redwood recently warned, dragging Britain back into the orbit of the Brussels rulebook will bring higher taxes, slower economic growth, and an avalanche of unwanted foreign regulations that British voters explicitly rejected.
Hitching ourselves to the Brussels bandwagon by stealth or signing up to alignment without a vote takes the nation back to the economic stagnation of the 1970s. What the government fails to admit, or intentionally ignores, is that Brussels never hands out favours for free. EU negotiators, including former chief negotiator Michel Barnier, have repeatedly reminded everyone that there is no “cherry-picking” when it comes to European rules and single market access.
Nigel Farage (Image: Getty)
The four freedoms are indivisible. If Burnham agrees to dynamic alignment on food, farming, emissions trading, and youth mobility schemes, the UK will swiftly find itself under the jurisdiction of European legal oversight without having any say over the laws being created. That is not negotiation – it is dynamic submission.
To claim that accepting EU standards on food, agriculture, and mobility is simply about lower supermarket prices is an insult to the public’s intelligence. True national sovereignty means taking full control of our laws, borders, and trade policy. Surrendering regulatory autonomy back to unelected bureaucrats in Brussels under the guise of an “EU reset” forfeits the very freedoms that Brexit secured. Britain must stand firm, defend its sovereign rights, and reject this humiliating capitulation once and for all.