Burnham’s Brexit plan is a can of worms

Peter Cardwell is a presenter on the Talk radio and TV network and a former Conservative special adviser Despite possessing no mandate, the Prime Minister Andy Burnham has nevertheless mustered the breathtaking arrogance to ignore the will of 17.4m people and go into detailed, crucial negotiations with the EU to fundamentally change Brexit, without any clear plan. Next week he will travel to Brussels for his first formal summit with the EU and hopes to seal deals which will see us moving closer together once more. In a classic Burnham move, the net result will likely see the UK accepting numerous EU directives without any ability to push back, or have any real say as to what those directives demand. As always, vibes trump detail. Burnham insists it will be “win-win”. Hmm. One Cabinet minister told The i Paper: “I think the important thing is getting a good deal at the summit that demonstrates the direction towards improvements in standards, improvements in growth, and then we see where that takes us.” We see where that takes us. No direction, no plan, no strategy. Just an airy renegotiation plan, because Europe good, Brexit bad. If there is a strategy, it is to get growth, yet EU realignment as a panacea to our sclerotic GDP is naive in itself. The economic record of, for example, Germany, is hardly worth emulating, with Britain’s 0.7 per cent July to September growth far better. The areas of renegotiation are worth examining. On agrifoods, Burnham is junking a decade’s work and simply going back to regulatory alignment, which will cause yet more chaos for an industry beset by 10 years of uncertainty and a mountain of paperwork. One estimate suggests 780 pieces of parliamentary legislation per year could be generated on this policy area alone.Similarly, the plethora of free trade deals done with countries around the world, using our post-Brexit freedoms, could be canned by closer EU alignment. Business, as usual, is but an afterthought for Burnham. In the university sector, the plan is to enhance the Erasmus study abroad scheme. Culture Secretary Lisa Nandy announced this on Rememberance Sunday, tastelessly linking a major policy shift to the day we honour our war dead. Alongside these reforms, continental leaders want foreign students to pay the same tuition costs as Britons, a sticking point on which Burnham looks set to capitulate. The Prime Minister must deal with the one million NEETs in the country he is charged with governing, to say nothing of hundreds of thousands of graduates struggling to get good jobs. The UK’s largest recruiter, Reed, recently reported 52 per cent of the country’s hiring managers believe artificial intelligence is reducing work opportunities. Might it be an idea for the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom to put British young people first before inviting in yet more foreign competition for these disappearing jobs? Once this cack-handed negotiation is concluded, additional directives from unelected Eurocrats will have to be obeyed. True, we gave up that say on EU matters when we voted Brexit. But why, it may reasonably be asked, is the Prime Minister voluntarily agreeing to a never-ending relationship over which we have no say? Climate targets are also part of the deal and will speed the expensive transition to Net Zero and associated economic upset. All of this adds up to Burnham talking, once again, out of both sides of his mouth. His policy on pork scratchings has been abundantly communicated. Yet his strategy on fundamental parts of how our economy and society work will be, in a few days’ time, surrendered to those we voted to leave a decade ago. As one Cabinet minister, speaking anonymously to The Times, put it: “Why the f*ck have you opened this can of worms?” This split could yet see Burnham walking back on the negotiations. Not only is the UK public’s will likely to be betrayed, but Burnham’s own mantra. The Prime Minister whose watchword is devolution is instead wanting to take power away from a national parliament and voluntarily giving it to a supra-national body where unelected bureaucrats tell businesses and the public what to do. Let’s remember Burnham’s stated idea on becoming Prime Minister to “take power out of here [Westminster] and carry it into every postcode in the land so that they can do more”. The postcode he had in mind, it would appear, was Berlaymont, Brussels, 1049. Peter Cardwell is a presenter on Talk, was a Conservative special adviser and is author of Political Animals, now out in paperback EXPLORE MORE ON THE TOPICS IN THIS STORY