News
Even before the Labour leadership campaign has commenced, the main players in the fight for the top job are jostling for position and trying to cause problems for each other.
Earlier today in a speech at the Great North Investment Summit in Leeds, Burnham stated that he is “not proposing that the UK considers rejoining the EU” and that he “respects the decision made in the referendum”. He went on to say that it would “undermine everything he has said about strengthening democracy if we didn’t respect the vote”.
This statement of course requires some additional context, as Andy Burnham has always been passionate about his pro-EU credentials, and as recently as September last year stated that he “wanted to rejoin the EU”, and that in his lifetime he saw the UK rejoining.
The constituency of Makerfield in North-East England is the seat that Andy Burnham hopes to contest as a Labour candidate, to regain a position as an MP and so be eligible to be a future Labour leader and Prime Minister. However, the constituency is a heavily pro-leave area and recently voted to install multiple Reform UK councillors in the local elections.
It has been suggested that, with Wes Streeting playing up his pro-EU credentials as a potential leadership candidate, it forces Andy Burnham to either compete to win the crown of the pro-EU candidate and potentially lose his chances in the by-election, or deny that position and lose the support of the pro-EU caucus of the Labour Party.
As a cross-party campaign, Britain Unbound merely sees this jockeying for position as an opportunistic use of the now decade-long Brexit argument, which unfortunately does neither man any favours in the category of being honest with the electorate.
