Andy Burnham’s top team is concerned the Prime Minister’s bid to bring Britain closer to the EU risks bolstering support for Reform UK.
The Prime Minister is due to hold an “honest conversation” at a crunch UK-EU summit on November 20, where he is expected to buckle to the demands of the bureaucratic bloc.
But some of the party’s most senior MPs and ministers are fearing that Mr Burnham’s lunge towards Brussels could put them at risk at the next general election, The Telegraph revealed.
Senior ministers admitted that reopening the debate could push voters towards the pioneering Brexiteers in Nigel Farage’s party.
“He’s opened up a debate without a plan. It has just opened a lot of old wounds and reignited support for Reform that was waning,” one minister told the paper.
In the Cabinet, John Healey, Lisa Nandy and Yvette Cooper preside over seats which voted Leave in 2016 – all of whom could lose out on votes if the Brexit debate rears its head once again.
Another Whitehall insider said the EU debate was fuelling worry amongst ministers, many of whom were “going back and checking referendum results in their seats and thinking, ‘Where does this put me at the next election?'”
Others have expressed concern over the “unclear” policy with the bloc, whether it will be forcing Britain to become a full member state, to join the customs union or throw open the country’s borders for freedom of movement.
Earlier in the week, Mr Healey, the Chancellor, said he did not “expect to see” a return to Brussels within his lifetime as he was older than the Prime Minister.
Several days before, Mr Burnham said he would like to see Britain become a member state again, but insisted he would “not move ahead of the public”.
The Chancellor’s subsequent remarks had annoyed Mr Burnham amid fears Cabinet risked appearing divided ahead of the UK-EU summit, senior Whitehall sources told The i Paper.
Another source, meanwhile, suggested Mr Healey “needs reigning in”.
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“Few Labour MPs who want a long-term future in the Labour Party are likely to want to commit hari-kari over (closer ties with the EU) and I would put Shabana Mahmood and Healey into this category,” a senior Whitehall source said.
Mr Burnham is said to believe accepting the EU’s freedom of movement may be the key to unlocking meaningful concessions from Brussels.
However, the Prime Minister has not yet settled on offering to throw open Britain’s borders to the bloc.
Labour MPs were awaiting a decision from their leader over his favoured options regarding the UK’s relationships with EU.
Whitehall insiders, however, told The Telegraph that he would avoid “granular detail” about the diplomatic deal.
Individuals with knowledge of the plans claimed any disclosed information “wouldn’t be a great negotiating tactic”, adding that transparency would risk putting the UK on the “backfoot”.
The EU’s former chief Brexit negotiator, Michel Barnier, said: “As far as the freedom of movement is concerned, I can only repeat that the four freedoms are linked together and are not negotiable.”
However, a return to freedom of movement risks sparking public fury amid the Government’s pledge to slash migration.
Re-opening the borders to the bloc would inevitably increase the numbers of migrants coming to Britain, a senior Whitehall source said, unless the Government found another way to reduce the flow.
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