Labour MP warns Andy Burnham ‘not to rip the whole country apart’ in Brexit war

Ms Onn – an elected member of the party’s ruling National Executive Committee – was the first Labour backbencher to break cover this week to express concern about the party advocating ripping up part of the UK’s Brexit deal with Brussels.

Mr Burnham raised the prospect of the UK signing up again to EU freedom of movement in a weekend newspaper interview as part of a deal to get closed to the trading bloc.

And in an interview with GB News hours after the Budget, Chancellor John Healey said that EU freedom of movement was “inevitably part of a bigger discussion about how we get a better Brexit deal” after the next general election.

The Labour Government was elected on a pledge not to go back into the single market, customs union or sign up to EU freedom of movement.

Ms Onn, whose Great Grimsby and Cleethorpes seat voted 69 per cent in favour of leaving the EU in the 2016 EU referendum, said there needed to be a debate in the party before this ‘triple lock’ on its Brexit position was weakened.

She told GB News’ Chopper’s Political Podcast that any commitment to adopt EU freedom of movement for the UK “would presumably have to go into a Labour Party manifesto”.

She said: “That means that there needs to be a conversation and discussion within the Labour Party. That has not happened as yet.”

Ms Onn said that the UK could still get closer to the EU such as allowing freedom of movement among 18-30 year olds without breaking the Brexit red lines in the manifesto.

She added: “It is just not worth ripping the whole country apart again when we are able to make decisions, like with the youth carve out, for example, we can make those decisions.

“They’re really limited. We’ve got a clear parameter around them, and people are more comfortable with that.

“Rather than saying, we’re going to completely open the doors and there are no checks, and we know that there are issues around immigration and who’s coming here and a sense of not having security in the country. Why would we open that up again like that?”

Labour risked losing trust with voters if it reversed on the Brexit pledges in the 2024 manifesto. Ms Onn described this as a “big trust issue” which the party could not afford to risk with voters in parts of the country which voted to leave the EU.

She said: “One of the reasons why some areas of the country decided to place their trust in the Labour Party again in 2024, having had an absolute routing in 2019 was because we were very clear about that – unambiguous, very certain.”

Ms Onn said that the risk of allowing more EU freedom of movement in the future was that it would allow new arrivals from the EU countries to claim benefits and use public services which the had not paid into through their taxes.

She said: “That notion of a contributory system is quite fundamental. And I think some of that has been lost. And I think that when we when we said to people ‘we’re leaving the EU’ people did that on the basis of immigration, regardless of where it came from, they’re still not happy about immigration.

“So to now introduce another conversation about complete freedom of movement, does it involve us being part of the Schengen Agreement again?”

She added: “What other responsibilities do we then have to kind of give up to the EU? So there were there were lots of things and I was really surprised to see it kind of broached in quite a relaxed way when it has got big consequences.”