Andy Burnham has floated a betrayal of the biggest mandate the nation's electorate has ever handed down, according to Nick Ferrari. Writing in the Daily Express, Ferrari says the Labour politician's numbers do not add up.
Burnham's Brexit position
Ferrari highlights that it was as recently as June, while campaigning in the Makerfield by-election, that Burnham ran away from a Daily Express journalist when challenged about his Remainer beliefs. Now, having reached Westminster from a Greater Manchester area where 65% of voters backed Leave, Burnham feels emboldened to outline his true position.
In his speech to the Labour conference in Liverpool, Burnham floated the idea briefly, promising a National Care Service, more spending on the NHS, taking back most utilities, and building council houses, seemingly funded by robbing pensioners of the Triple Lock, Ferrari writes.
Doubling down in interviews
The speech contained little more than throwaway lines, but Burnham doubled down in subsequent interviews, saying he was prepared to consider a “whole range of options” including “a customs union, what the Liberal Democrats said at their conference about the single market” and ending chillingly “we could go all the way.”
Ferrari argues this shattered Burnham's promise of “a new political system,” as no sane person can think a return to the toxicity of the Brexit debate of ten years ago can be good for anyone. While Burnham is right that the current UK-EU relationship “isn't good enough,” he puts forward little rationale for how going back to Brussels would improve things.
Economic and political context
Ferrari reasons the relationship is unsatisfactory because Britain never actually 'Brexited,' lumbering itself with a Remain-voting Prime Minister in Theresa May and a Bank of England Governor in Mark Carney who still has a misplaced love for the EU. On the economic front, while UK growth is little better than anaemic, it continually outstrips France and Germany.
European leaders have weighed in behind the move, with French President Emmanuel Macron hailing it as “a good decision and I think he is right to be bold in this regard,” echoed by Spanish counterpart Pedro Sanchez, who said he would welcome Britain back “with open arms.”
Ferrari concludes that Burnham talked up his ten-year plan, then bizarrely spoke of taking us ten years back in time for another Brexit row, and the numbers don't add up for the man behind the door at Number Ten.
