Suella Braverman has issued a damning verdict on Andy Burnham’s suggestion that Britain could “go all the way” and rejoin the EU.
Speaking to Katherine Forster, GB News’ Chief Political Correspondent, on Chopper’s Political Podcast, Mrs Braverman said the Prime Minister has “never respected Brexit and he actually wants to undo it”.
She slammed his words as “an affront to democracy” and “a slap in the face to British patriots”.
Mrs Braverman, who also discussed her new book “Patriot: Empire, Betrayal & Hope” extensively in the podcast, is now Reform UK’s education, skills and equalities spokeswoman, and is still MP for Fareham and Waterlooville in Hampshire.
A former Tory big beast and Home Secretary under both Liz Truss and Rishi Sunak, she spectacularly defected to Reform in January, saying she felt like she’d “come home”.
She explained: “When running for Parliament only a few months ago and seeking the support of the public, Andy Burnham was emphatic that no, he wouldn’t reopen the Brexit debate and he would be respecting the referendum result. And we had to put that in the past and just move forward.”
The seat of Makerfield, between Liverpool and Manchester, voted heavily for Brexit in 2016.
Andy Burnham kicked off his by-election campaign there on May 22 and a week later wrote in The Times, responding to an essay by Sir Tony Blair: “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.”
On TV in Leeds that same month, the then-Mayor of Greater Manchester said: “I am not proposing that the UK considers rejoining the EU. I respect the decision that was made at the referendum. And it’s going to undermine everything I’ve said about strengthening democracy is we don’t respect that vote”.
His election in Makerfield, in which he took home just shy of 25,000 votes, set him on the path to become Prime Minister just weeks later.
Yet on stage in his first leader’s speech in Liverpool at the Labour Party conference, Mr Burnham declared that “Brexit has done more harm that good”.
Ignoring the will of 17.4 million voters is an ‘affront to democracy’, the Reform UK MP warned
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The following day he outlined options for getting closer to Europe: “stay as we are”, being in the Customs Union and scrapping our trade deals, rejoining the Single Market and accepting freedom of movement again, or going “all the way” and rejoining.
Mrs Braverman said it marked “another example of how untrustworthy some of these politicians are” and poured scorn on his change in position.
“The paint is not even dry in No10 North, so to speak. His true colours are coming out, that actually he was a Remainer all along and he’s never respected Brexit and he actually wants to undo it. That’s an affront to democracy. It’s a slap in the face to British patriots,” she said.
If another referendum were held, Mrs Braverman, a passionate Brexiteer and one of a small number of Tory MPs to have voted all three times against Theresa May’s Brexit deal, was clear on how she’d vote.
“I still support the principle of Brexit. If there was a referendum tomorrow, I would vote Leave in a heartbeat. Of course I would,” she said.
ANDY BURNHAM’S BREXIT U-TURN – READ MORE:
Mrs Braverman said Andy Burnham’s ‘true colours are coming out’ after he promised not to re-run Brexit arguments on the campaign trail in Makerfield
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A YouGov poll suggests that some 59 per cent of the public support rejoining the European Union.
Separate polling by Britain Elects, however, suggests if Britain had to have the Euro and be part of the Schengen area, just 35 per cent would still support rejoining.
A more detailed poll reveals a majority of the public think that Brexit could have been a success, but has been handled badly by politicians.
And Mrs Braverman agreed, saying it was “cocked up”.
“The problem is, whilst technically and legally we are out of the European Union – and Boris delivered that, and you’ve got to give him a degree of credit for that – in substance, it was cocked up.
“Brexit was cocked up by the last Conservative Government.”
Boris Johnson’s ‘Boriswave’ of millions of migrants was ‘unforgivable’, his former party colleague said
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Despite having once been a huge supporter of the former Prime Minister and praising Mr Johnson for finally “getting Brexit done”, Mrs Braverman said she will “never forgive” him for the surge in migration.
Brexit was in part a vote to lower and control migration – but post-Brexit, Boris Johnson’s Government oversaw net migration surging to almost one million in the year to March 2023.
Those numbers have since been dubbed the “Boriswave”.
Mrs Braverman said she thought the “disaster” on migration was “unforgivable”.
“It happened because of Boris’s leadership and people in today’s Conservative Party. And so it will have major repercussions on the face of Britain, on our public services, on our economic growth, on wages, on community cohesion,” she said.
“It was a total breach of his promise to the British people.”