Prepare Britain to rejoin the EU now, Sadiq Khan tells Burnham

Sadiq Khan has told Andy Burnham to begin preparing Britain to rejoin the European Union immediately. The Mayor of London is calling for a return to the customs union “almost straight away,” a push for associate membership of the EU and a manifesto commitment to rejoin the bloc with no second referendum. His intervention goes far beyond Tony Blair’s call last week for Britain to work towards rejoining the EU in the next decade. Shorts Last week, the Prime Minister opened the door to fighting the next general election on a pledge to rejoin the bloc. In an interview with The i Paper as Labour’s annual conference begins in Liverpool, Khan said he welcomed the interventions, but added: “I don’t think it’s enough.” Khan, who believes leaving the European Union was the “biggest act of economic self-harm in the UK’s history”, insists the case for rejoining must be made now rather than sprung on voters at the last minute before the next general election. Any attempt to rejoin would be politically risky and could reopen toxic divides in the country. It would be seized on by the Conservatives and Reform as evidence that the party is willing to betray working-class voters who backed Brexit. But Khan insists: “We’ve got to start the work now… You can’t, a week before a general election, pull out of a hat this rabbit of a manifesto and say we’re going to rejoin in six weeks’ time. “The heavy lifting, the pitch rolling must be done now, explaining to the country the disbenefits of being outside the European Union and the benefits of being part of this family.” Several Cabinet ministers are privately pushing for a rejoin pledge in the party’s next manifesto but No 10 are split over the idea, The i Paper has been told. One Cabinet minister said: “There are voices calling for us to go back in but I just don’t think it’s realistic.” The Brexit reset has suffered a setback since Burnham took over as Prime Minister, with a dispute over the bloc’s proposed “Made in Europe” scheme, which would favour European-made goods and could disadvantage UK firms. The row has reportedly delayed the planned UK-EU summit this year. According to the Financial Times, Brussels believes many of the difficulties could be resolved if Britain rejoined the EU customs union. But Business Secretary Jonathan Reynolds has warned against pursuing that option, arguing it would not be in the UK’s interests. Khan said geography and trade made the case for rejoining the EU self-evident. “Our nearest neighbours are France, Germany, Spain, the European Union. Our biggest trading partner is the European Union. It is bonkers that we’re not talking about this more.” He urged the Government to tear up its Brexit red lines, which rule out rejoining the EU, the single market, the customs union, or free movement of people. “All this nonsense about red lines is just that,” he said. He argued the world had been transformed since Labour’s victory at the general election in July 2024. “We’ve had the election of Donald Trump into the White House. He’s got protectionist policies; he’s a unilateralist. We’ve also had the war in Iran. “If we were sensible, those are facts that lead to us changing our position in relation to the manifesto. We shouldn’t be dogmatic about a manifesto that’s causing us so much self-harm.” Khan, who has made no secret of his wish to reverse Brexit, has been London mayor for 10 years. The capital backed Remain by 59.9 per cent to 40.1 per cent in the 2016 referendum. London mayor’s steps to reversing Brexit Khan set out a staged route back into the EU, arguing that some of the steps were already under way. The first, he said, was a reset in relations with Brussels, for which the former Prime Minister Keir Starmer “deserves huge credit”. The next step, he argued, should be for Britain to rejoin the customs union “almost straight away”. The manifesto pledge ruling this out, he added, “was written in different circumstances”. From there, Khan argued that Britain should seek “a form of associate membership” of the EU, with membership of the single market “on the table”. And finally, Labour’s next manifesto should use “unambiguous language”, stating that if Labour wins the next general election, “we will rejoin the European Union,” Khan said. Asked whether rejoining would require a second referendum, Khan said a Labour election victory would be enough. “A general election is the mandate that you need to join the European Union,” he added. He rejected the idea that the 2016 vote had been about a single issue. “We know it was a proxy for all sorts of other grievances. Understandably, people across the country have [those grievances]. I’m not denigrating those who voted to leave.” ‘We can do much better than Canada’ Khan pointed to Canada’s emerging relationship with Brussels – it has been invited to become an ‘associate member’ of the EU – as evidence that Britain could seek a more ambitious arrangement. “Canada is a country of 40 million, we’re a country of 70 million,” he said. “Canada is about the 11th or 12th biggest economy; we’re the fifth or sixth biggest economy. So if Canada can have associate membership with the EU, we can do much better than Canada.” Khan is scathing about complaints that Brussels is offering Britain too little. He said critics were ignoring the reality of Brexit, arguing Britain could not expect to enjoy the same benefits as member states after leaving the bloc. “That’s one of the consequences of leaving the club.” “We should be explaining to the British public, in a non-patronising way, the benefits of being inside the club, economically, socially and culturally.” He added: “We talk about productivity, we talk about growth, we talk about jobs, we talk about wealth. The single best way to get that is by joining the European Union.”