Andy Burnham's blunt admission that Brexit has not worked could inadvertently rescue the Conservatives from their generational dilemma, as Kemi Badenoch faces a strategic choice. The prime minister's surprise openness to reconsidering EU relations has wrongfooted opponents and presented the Tories with an unexpected opportunity.
Burnham's Bold Strategy
After years of Labour politicians, including Burnham himself in the Makerfield byelection, trying to hide their true feelings about Brexit, Burnham has decided to just tell the truth and hope people accept it. Leaving hasn't worked, he said bluntly last week in Liverpool, and Britain should consider the alternatives. This bold strategy seemingly surprised much of his own cabinet, an early lesson in how he likes to work for those who hadn't studied his Manchester operation closely enough.
The oddly muted initial response to what would once have been a seismic shock suggests it's wrongfooting some opponents, too. Nigel Farage has been the only one to react with unfettered glee, with Reform's next manifesto basically written for him: save Brexit, stop the boats and don't vote for Restore because it can't win.
The Tory Dilemma
Things are more complicated for the Lib Dems and Greens, who, having pitched themselves as the only real pro-Europeans on the left, are now stuck with trying to take credit for pushing Labour into doing the right thing. But it's the party currently holding its conference in Birmingham that faces the most interesting dilemma.
Kemi Badenoch doesn't mention Brexit much these days, and it gets only brief mentions in The Right Way, the 95-page personal essay she says would form the bedrock of a Tory government. In his platform speech on Monday, the shadow chancellor, Andrew Griffith, chose to focus on accusing Burnham of supposedly dragging Britain back to the 1970s, rather than back to 2015.
Yet the Conservatives are still promising to reverse any Labour unravelling of Brexit, regardless of how that affects the economic growth Badenoch simultaneously insists is everything to her. It makes no intellectual sense, which arguably didn't bother previous Tory leaders, but it's a mistake for one pitching herself as a rigorous thinker.
Growth vs. Reality
Growth is now Badenoch's rationale for everything, from scrapping the Environment Agency to giving parents earning over £100,000 free childcare. Yet by ignoring the ongoing damage Brexit is doing to trade and GDP, Badenoch is chopping her self-professed growth mission off at the knees.
In her 1976 essay The Right Approach, Margaret Thatcher declared that her party "has always been outward-looking, while concerned with the security, the economic interests and the honour of Britain". Thatcher in 1976 was still a pragmatist arguing for Europe, where Badenoch in 2026 is an ideologue.
The Tory brand remains toxic mostly because voters got sick of endless Brexit-related drama consuming Westminster, while none of the practical benefits materialised. Though they would never have opened this door, in truth it suits the Tories to let Burnham walk through it, while blaming him for whatever goes wrong.
If he can construct some mythical EU deal boosting trade and prosperity while remaining acceptable to an electorate convulsed with anxiety about immigration – a big if – then future governments will owe him. If he can't, Badenoch can just join the chorus of condemnation. But it's not in Tory long-term interests to strangle this at birth.
Readers who couldn't care less about Tory long-term interests, meanwhile, should care that Europe won't re-enter tortuous Brexit negotiations until it's clear they could survive a change of government in Britain. If not a referendum, that means at least tacit cross-party acceptance that the country could do better. Badenoch doesn't even have to say yes to a rethink. All she has to do, for once, is not say no.
