Burnham leaves door open to ‘rejoin EU’ pledge

NEW YORK — Will Labour go into the next general election campaigning to reverse Brexit? Andy Burnham says that’s “a question for another day.”

Quizzed by reporters ahead of a meeting with the president of the European Commission, the U.K. prime minister left the door open to making the manifesto commitment — which is backed by some in his party.

Burnham said he had been “reflecting on that last decade” outside the EU and suggested the referendum campaign had been characterized by distorted facts.

“Our focus at the moment is on a U.K.-EU summit which we hope will take place later this year,” he told reporters on the plane on the way to the U.N. General Assembly in New York.

“My immediate priority is to build on the good work that Keir [Starmer] did in rebuilding bridges. Because those bridges were broken in the early part of this decade, and Keir did a good job in re-establishing that relationship,” he added.

“What we have got to do is now go to the next level in terms of reaching practical agreement that will further boost the British economy.”

Referring to rejoining the bloc wholesale, Burnham said: “The other issues you discuss — they are for another day.”

The prime minister’s comments are a major shift in rhetoric from the days of predecessor Keir Starmer, who pledged to “make Brexit work” and set out strict red lines to preserve Boris Johnson’s settlement.

Some in Burnham’s party, including former leader Neil Kinnock, have called for Labour to put the pledge to rejoin in its next manifesto. Others say it would be an electoral liability or a betrayal of the referendum result.

The U.K.-EU summit mentioned by the prime minister was originally scheduled for July but was postponed after the change in U.K. premiership.

Yet Brussels and London are yet to name a new date for the meeting amid wrangling over the EU’s protectionist Made in Europe measures and the vexed question of tuition fees for EU students studying in Britain.

“We do have concerns about Made in Europe, which is something that could affect British industry and British supply chains,” Burnham said, adding that he would discuss the matter when he met with Commission President Ursula von der Leyen at the U.N. on Tuesday.

“I will, in a constructive spirit, put on the table some of our concerns towards those things, at the same time as working towards what we hope will be a successful EU-U.K. summit later this year,” he said.

Burnham told reporters on the plane that Brexit would be part of his speech at the U.N. General Assembly. He hinted that he would link it to other global challenges.

“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,” he said.

“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.”