Andy Burnham tells GB News he is considering rejoining EU as PM makes major Brexit U-turn
Andy Burnham has confirmed he will consider pushing for Britain to rejoin the European Union after being accused of making a major Brexit U-turn.
The Prime Minister, who promised voters in Brexit-backing Makerfield he would not try to return Britain to the EU in May, has now told GB News rejoining the bloc is one of the options he is considering for London's long-term relationship with Brussels.
Mr Burnham said he could not “leave Britain out” of discussions about Britain's future relationship with the EU and insisted he had to consider all options.
Speaking to the People's Channel, the Prime Minister said: “We look at all options. The speech was about deciding the long-term direction for this country. Where do we want to be in 10 years' time?
“And I don't think we now can leave that question unanswered. An option is to stay as we are. Of course, that's an option.
“But public opinion has shifted in that decade, including in Makerfield, and it's right that I say, well, here are the options.
“George Osborne's put an option forward. Canada have talked about a different relationship with the European Union.
“I can't leave Britain out of those discussions. We do have to have an honest and grown-up conversation about well, what could a future relationship look like?
“And then come back to the public and say, well, here are the broad options, and here are the issues involved with each of them.
“That's just the right way to lead. I've got to do what's best for this country.”
The Prime Minister's comments came just 125 days after he explicitly said he would not try to return Britain to the EU and said the country should not remain focused on arguments about Brexit.
"Our relentless focus now should be on domestic issues, and fixing our own underlying problems, rather than on re-running divisive arguments about rejoining the European Union," Mr Burnham said at the time.
Labour's 2024 manifesto also ruled out returning to the EU, single market or customs union and restoring freedom of movement.
The new position threatens to spark a Brexit civil war inside Labour after MPs spoke out against rejoining the bloc.
Graham Stringer, who is the last pro-Brexit Labour MP, told GB News: "Any talk about going back in now is just signalling to voters who support the EU, but it's not real politics.
"I think that trying to sneak back in bit by bit by giving decisions to other countries is a major mistake."
Business Secretary Jonathan Reynolds also warned Labour would risk creating economic uncertainty by reigniting the 2016 debate.
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However, Mr Burnham told the People's Channel maintaining the current relationship, a customs union, a single market relationship and full EU membership are among the options under consideration.
He is expected to set out different options around the UK-EU summit later this year.
YouGov polling in June found 55 per cent of Britons now support Britain rejoining the EU, an inversion of the 52 per cent that voted leave in 2016.
However, only 23 per cent of people who voted for Brexit said they would now support rejoining.
Mr Burnham was asked GB News whether the “centre of gravity” of public opinion would influence his thinking.
He said: “My job is to secure the best interests of this country.
"That's what I was talking about yesterday, and you know I'm going to take on issues, even if they're politically difficult, to do what's right for Britain.
“That's what I'm going to do. The decade we've just been through has not been good enough.
"I don't think Brexit has helped us. If I'm honest. I think it has caused harm.
“So the question is, we can't have another decade like the one we've just had.
“So what are we going to do in this next decade?”
Mr Burnham also said Brexit had changed the nature of immigration to Britain.
He claimed before Brexit there was a “more revolving door form of migration”, with people coming from Eastern Europe in their younger years and often returning home after several years.
“Now, immigration is more likely to be a permanent settlement, where people are coming on a visa to work here,” Mr Burnham added.
“And then we saw obviously the 'Boriswave' and the changes that came through in that period."
The latest Office for National Statistics figures show that 627,000 non-EU+ nationals made a long-term move to Britain in the year ending December 2025, compared with 76,000 EU+ nationals.
Net migration fell from a peak of 944,000 in the year ending March 2023 to 171,000 in the year ending December 2025.
Mr Burnham also said Brexit had made it harder to manage migration because Britain had lost access to European immigration information.
He said Britain had lost access to a “crucial immigration database held across Europe”, which provided information about where people had arrived and which countries they had travelled through.
However, leading Brexit campaigners blame political leadership for letting legal migration spiral and suggest the EU's Dublin convention did little to curb illegal arrivals.
Mr Burnham's comments on immigration came after he previously warned against what he called “HMO Britain”, arguing poorer communities had been left to shoulder too much of the burden of asylum accommodation.
Asked by the People's Channel about the issue, Mr Burnham said Labour had brought small boat crossings down significantly and praised Home Secretary Shabana Mahmood for “getting a grip” on the issue.
Mr Burnham also defended his criticism of the use of HMOs to house asylum seekers, saying: "I did call that out."
He added: "We've had an approach in the past of the poorest communities being asked to deal with the whole issue of asylum accommodation, and that just simply isn't fair.”
Mr Burnham distinguished the use of former military barracks from HMOs and other forms of dispersed accommodation.
However, the Prime Minister admitted: "I've heard what people are saying in Piddington and the other places affected. I don't ignore their concerns.”
Plans to house 1,256 male asylum seekers at a former military site near Piddington in Oxfordshire have sparked a fierce local backlash.
Piddington, a village of around 350 people, held a symbolic referendum in September in which 285 residents voted for independence from the UK, compared with 26 who voted against.
Despite the Prime Minister defending Labour's small boats record, GB News's migration tracker shows 84,375 migrants have crossed the English Channel since Sir Keir Starmer's victory in 2024, including 6,666 under Mr Burnham's watch.
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