Burnham signals he will fight next election on platform of taking Britain back into Europe - and ministers will have to back free movement to keep their jobs
Published: | Updated:
Prime Minister Andy Burnham this morning ruled out a snap election, insisting there would not be one coming 'any time soon'.
But he also hinted that, when it comes, he would fight his campaign on the issue of taking Britain back into the European Union.
Mr Burnham told ITV's Good Morning Britain he was 'not proposing any changes in this Parliament' - but refused to rule it out at the next.
It comes after the Prime Minister over the weekend opened the door to Britain readopting the European Union's free movement rules.
Mr Burnham admitted this morning that he wants to see Britain rejoin the EU 'in [his] lifetime', but claimed he would not 'move ahead of the public'.
He said: 'We have a decade of experience now looking back at Brexit. I don't think it has played out as people said it would at the time. We got a harder Brexit. It has weakened our economy.
'I am not proposing rejoining in this Parliament. I said we wouldn't re-run the referendum. That's not what I'm doing. The British public will be the bosses here.
'I don't think things have worked out as they said they would at the time, particularly when it comes to immigration.'
On re-adopting free movement rules, Mr Burnham told the Sunday Times that the nature of immigration into the UK had been 'different' since Brexit - with more foreigners moving permanently rather than returning to their home countries.
If the rules became policy, Labour's front benchers would be obliged to back it in public - or risk losing their jobs.
KioskNews shows a cleaned-up reading view extracted from the publisher’s page — the original always lives on their site, not ours.