Kemi Badenoch refuses to say if Brexit has benefitted London

Kemi Badenoch has refused to say whether Brexit has been good for London despite lashing out at Andy Burnham for reigniting the debate to rejoin the European Union.

Ahead of the Conservative conference this week, the Tory leader was repeatedly quizzed on whether the capital had been better off after the UK left the EU following the 2016 referendum.

Ms Badenoch refused to answer and insisted that her party was moving forward and voters were “not interested in having a row, which we had 10 years ago”.

She told BBC London's political editor Karl Mercer: “The country voted, as did many people in London as well.”

Brexit could be a key issue in the 2028 London mayoral election after the prime minister reopened the debate during his Labour Party conference speech last week.

Asked whether Brexiteer and mayoral hopeful Sir James Cleverly was the right man for the “anti-Brexit” capital, Ms Badenoch said: “Well, the last Conservative mayor of London was also a Brexiteer, that was Boris Johnson, and he was somebody who people have very fond memories of.

“I don't think Labour has been good for London and the people of London will be voting whether it's Conservatives or Labour, not on Brexit.”

Sir James told The Independent that he was happy to make rejoining the EU an election issue and was ready to fight the plans, which he claimed would damage the capital’s interests.

Across all 33 boroughs in London, 59.9 per cent voted in favour of remaining in the bloc.

London mayor Sir Sadiq Khan renewed his demands for the UK to rejoin at the Labour conference and urged the prime minister to start doing the “heavy lifting”.

Mr Burnham has blamed Brexit for a decade of drift and division and insisted he could go “all the way” in proposing to rejoin the bloc.

He promised to set out the options to the country around the time of a UK-EU summit in November and later suggested that Labour’s next election manifesto could include an in-out referendum.

Ms Badenoch, who was a staunch Leave campaigner, described his proposal as “lazy” and accused him of “living in the past”.

She told The Telegraph: “Andy Burnham is living in the past. I wasn’t even an MP when we voted to leave the European Union. I voted Leave. The country voted Leave. And what they want politicians to do is make it work rather than still trying to go back into the EU.

“It is lazy. It is lazy thinking from somebody who has run out of ideas and wants to refight the battles of the past.”

A new poll by the Messina Group over the weekend found that 49 per cent of people support rejoining the EU, compared to the 28.5 per cent against.

The poll, which was first reported in The Guardian, also found that renegotiating Britain’s relationship with the EU could boost Labour’s vote share by as much as seven points.