How Farage plans to ‘set fire’ to a Burnham Brexit – and the plot to stop him

Two seismic issues could forge historic change in UK politics, and it has now emerged that Andy Burnham’s pledge to fight the next general election on closer ties with Europe and electoral reform are closely linked. The Prime Minister is expected to campaign in 2029 – or earlier – on a pledge to replace first past the post with proportional representation partly because it would make Britain’s relationship with Brussels harder for a future government to reverse. The strategy reflects fears that any new far-reaching agreement with the EU could be torn up if Farage subsequently enters Downing Street – leading to decades of uncertainty. Shorts Burnham’s announcement during his Labour conference speech on Tuesday that the UK needs to decide on its future relationship with the EU is understood to be closely linked to his electoral reform pledge in that same speech. PR would give louder voice to pro-EU parties There has even been speculation that a referendum on both issues could be held on the same day, although the Electoral Commission is likely to raise concerns about the potential for voter confusion and the practical challenges of running two major constitutional referendums simultaneously. A senior Whitehall source said first past the post has kept Labour in opposition for most of the last half century. While first past the post often delivers clear results – even if there is a hung Parliament, one party is usually dominant – critics argue it means governments enjoy large majorities on relatively small vote share. Labour’s current historic landslide is based on just over a third of the vote share – 33.7 per cent, the lowest for any post-war government, according to Parliamentary analysis. Overall, however, the Conservatives have dominated post-war politics, being in power for just short of 50 years, compared to Labour’s 30 years, up to 2024. The thinking is that a proportional system would give a much louder voice in Westminster to the collection of parties broadly on the progressive and pro-European side of politics – making it harder for Farage to sweep away any new settlement with Brussels. “What the EU needs to know is that the UK is not going to spend the next few decades oscillating over its position towards Europe,” the source said. Burnham has stopped short of committing Britain to rejoining the EU. Farage would oppose any closer ties to Europe Instead, he has called for a review of the country’s relationship with Brussels, with options ranging from closer trading arrangements to more fundamental changes to the post-Brexit settlement. He has argued that Britain should be prepared to consider the full range of options, including closer alignment with the single market and customs union, while saying that any decision on rejoining the EU would require a much broader political and public debate. Farage has attacked the approach as an attempt to reverse Brexit. The Reform leader has said his party would oppose any move to undo the 2016 referendum result, while accusing Burnham of seeking to take Britain back towards the EU without a fresh mandate from voters. Polling expert Rob Ford said the EU is unlikely to favour Britain rejoining as long as there’s a chance Nigel Farage could “set fire” to any agreement. He told The i Paper during a Labour conference fringe event hosted by the University of Manchester: “The EU problem is easy to state but hard to solve. Most voters in all the centre-left parties and a significant chunk of the right as well are now saying the current arrangement is too many barriers. “But there are too many obvious problems in terms of improving that situation. The first is everyone is a little bit scared of the prospect of re-polarising everything around Brexit. They all remember how toxic and difficult those arguments got… They’re very wary of poking the sleeping dog in case it bites them. “But the bigger problem is simpler to state and harder to resolve – which is that if you are Brussels or the leader of any European country, why would you take the risk of negotiating a complex set of closer relations with Britain when it remains a credible possibility that the next British government will be headed by Nigel Farage who will immediately set fire to whatever you’ve agreed.” How PR could change the balance of power The case for linking closer EU ties to a change in the voting system was made in May by Tom Baldwin, biographer of Sir Keir Starmer. Baldwin argued in a column for The Guardian that with British votes now split between five or six parties, first past the post could allow Farage to become prime minister with only around a quarter of the national vote. That, he argued, could make Brussels wary of agreeing to a new settlement that a subsequent government could simply reverse. His conclusion was that if Britain wanted to move back towards Europe, it might also need to become more European in the way it elects its governments. New modelling by More in Common shows how dramatically PR could change the balance of power in Westminster. Under first past the post, Labour is projected to win 250 seats on 26 per cent of the vote – giving it 39 per cent of Commons seats but still leaving it short of a majority. Under three different proportional systems, Labour would win between 26 and 27 per cent of the seats, much closer to its share of the vote. No party would have a majority under any of the PR models. Instead, government could depend on alliances between several parties, with Labour, the Liberal Democrats, Greens, SNP and Plaid Cymru among those that could potentially form a progressive grouping. The effect on smaller parties would be particularly striking. The Greens are projected to win just three seats under first past the post on current polling, compared with more than 50 under each of the three proportional systems. PR would therefore not simply redistribute seats between Labour and the Conservatives; it would give parties currently squeezed by the constituency system a far greater presence in Parliament – and potentially a much greater say over which governments could be formed and sustained. That is the crucial point for Burnham’s EU strategy. A future Labour government seeking closer relations with Brussels could potentially rely on support from several parties pushing in the same direction. Equally, a future government seeking to reverse an agreement would have to operate in a parliament where smaller parties had considerably more representation and bargaining power. PR would not guarantee a permanent progressive or pro-European majority. The same modelling shows that other coalition combinations are possible. But it would make it harder for one party to turn a relatively small share of the national vote into a large Commons majority – and therefore easier for smaller parties to influence the direction of government.