Farage’s reaction to Burnham’s new Brexit stance shows the battle lines for the next election have already been drawn

‘Brexit betrayal’. That's how Nigel Farage has described Andy Burnham’s decision to open the door to Britain rejoining the European Union.

And in those two words can be seen the beginning of battle lines being drawn for the next general election.

Speaking at a rally in the north of England, the Reform UK leader told his party faithful: “If Andy Burnham, the King of the North, wants a fight in Doncaster and the ‘Red Wall’ with me on rejoining the EU, then bring it on, I say.”

He even thanked Mr Burnham for giving him what he said might be his biggest boost in decades in politics.

Earlier, he accused the prime minister of selling out the voters in his Leave-backing constituency of Makerfield. He accused Mr Burnham of hypocrisy and failing to live up to his ‘straight-talking’ image, and of trying to build a coalition of voters, including Lib Dems, that would reverse Brexit.

In truth, leading polling experts suggest there could be the appetite among voters for just such a coalition.

In an exclusive interview with The Independent earlier this month, polling guru Professor Sir John Curtice said that support for rejoining the EU was now at its highest level since the Brexit vote in 2016, at 61 per cent.

But he also revealed something that could be of more importance to the Labour leader – he said that the rise in the polls had happened despite very few politicians and political parties dared to talk about Brexit or potentially re-entering the EU.

Therefore, he suggested, there was a prize for the politician who would start to make the case for rejoining - that support would potentially rise even higher.

Similarly, last week, Ben Judah, Ed Miliband’s former adviser in the Foreign Office, told The Independent that in a general election in which rejoining was on the table, Mr Burnham could build a coalition of voters capable of achieving a ‘reverse’ Boris Johnson - pulling off the kind of election victory the ex-Tory PM did in 2019 with his pledge to ‘get Brexit done’.

Instead of facing a brutal election, in which he loses hundreds of Labour seats, he could unite voters currently backing Labour, the Lib Dems, the Greens and even some Conservatives fearful of Brexit’s effect on the economy, to win a majority in Parliament.

So the policy could give Burnham a boost. But Mr Farage clearly believes it will give his party one too.

And Reform needs it. The party enjoyed a year-long run in which it was ahead of Labour in the polls, but that came to a halt with the change of prime minister and the so-called ‘Burnham bounce’.

At around the same time, Reform appeared to be suffering an internal catastrophe. A party that relies so heavily on its headline-grabbing leader suddenly found he had become something of a submarine.

After pulling out of a high-profile TV interview with the BBC's Laura Kuenssberg, he was accused of trying to avoid questions about his £5m “gift” from a Thai-based billionaire.

Separately, but in another blow, earlier this month, the Metropolitan Police launched a criminal investigation into claims that Reform UK breached party donation rules on illegal foreign funding. Reform has denied wrongdoing and said it will co-operate with the investigation.

At the same time, however, Reform has vowed not to hold back in the next election and has recently received two massive £36m donations to add to its war chest.

In 2019, Boris Johnson exceeded expectations to overturn a hung parliament and win an 80-seat majority with his slogan of ‘get Brexit done’.

Could Andy Burnham pull off the opposite? An election victory on the back of a policy that effectively seeks to reverse Brexit? Nigel Farage and his Reform UK party will be doing everything they can to stop him.