Tories could join forces with Reform in bid to stop Burnham’s Brexit U-turn

A Tory shadow minister has opened the door to working with Nigel Farage’s Reform UK to stop Britain rejoining the EU. The comments, by shadow communities secretary Katie Lam, expose tensions over Kemi Badenoch’s response to Andy Burnham’s plans for closer ties with Brussels. Lam said that if a new campaign over Britain’s EU membership were launched, as happened ahead of the 2016 referendum, the “different parties” would have to decide “which side they would fall on” – leaving open the prospect of Conservatives and Reform campaigning together against EU re-entry. However, she said she did not expect such a campaign to happen, arguing that Burnham would simply seek to take Britain back into the EU “unilaterally”. In an interview with The i Paper, Lam, who voted Leave in 2016, rejected the prospect of Britain rejoining, arguing that the direction of travel in Europe, combined with the EU’s lower growth rates and regulatory burden, would take Britain “in exactly the wrong direction”. “I think to conclude that, to go back into the EU, which takes us in exactly the wrong direction in terms of regulation, in terms of agility, in terms of spend, I think is completely mad, let alone appallingly undemocratic,” she said. She said the Conservatives were “completely united” against rejoining the bloc, regardless of how individual members had voted in the original referendum. “There is no world in which that is a good idea,” she said, arguing that the 2016 vote could not simply be overturned because Burnham disagreed with its outcome.“The referendum was only a decade ago… and what he’s [Burnham] just decided unilaterally, [is] that this doesn’t count any more because he doesn’t like it, I think [is] outrageous,” she said. Her intervention comes after Burnham put Britain’s relationship with Europe back at the top of the political agenda, saying Brexit has “done more harm than good” and setting out a range of possible future options, from the status quo through to joining a customs union, the single market and potentially full EU membership. Badenoch, the Conservative Party leader, has insisted that her party should focus on making Brexit work rather than reopening the argument. Speaking to the BBC today, she said: “The country wants us to make the best of Brexit, make the best of leaving the EU.” She accused Labour of wanting to “go back and re-fight wars which were settled a long time ago”. Farage has welcomed the prospect of a fresh fight over Britain’s relationship with the EU, saying Reform will campaign to defeat any attempt to reverse Brexit. Farage challenged Burnham to fight him on the issue in the former “red wall” seats, saying: “If Andy Burnham, the king of the north, wants to fight in Doncaster and the red wall with me on rejoining the EU, then bring it on.” He said Burnham had given him the “biggest boost in my career” by reviving the Brexit debate. Conservative divisions over Europe were laid bare at the top of the party during the 2016 referendum. Cameron and George Osborne campaigned for Remain, while Boris Johnson and Michael Gove backed Leave and became leading figures in the Vote Leave campaign. The fallout helped bring down Cameron’s premiership and continued to dominate the party through Theresa May’s government and into Johnson’s pledge to “get Brexit done”. That history has raised fears that a renewed debate over Europe could reopen divisions within the party. But some Tory MPs insist it will not, arguing that Conservatives can debate Britain’s future relationship with the EU without returning to the bitter Leave-versus-Remain battles of the past. A Conservative MP who voted Remain said they did not think Burnham’s new position on Europe would reignite the divisions that once dominated the party. The MP said all Tory MPs were now “reconciled” to the 2016 vote, “and even those of us who think it was reckless madness don’t think another referendum is a good idea”, adding that the grassroots membership, “is now massively Eurosceptic”. “The moderates were all driven out in 2017, 2018 and 2019 in despair,” the source said. “I expect Kemi to make clear she’s not interested in ‘re-campaigning Brexit’ but ‘getting Britain working again’.” Sally Rushton, a former Tory adviser who now works for public affairs firm Sanctuary, said Badenoch would be likely to “come down like a tonne of bricks” on any Tory MP wishing to revisit the arguments over Europe. “Kemi has done a good job of stabilising and, by Tory standards, uniting the party around core conservative values,” she said. “She’s already shown she can be cutthroat with anyone who won’t get with the programme. “I think she’ll come down like a tonne of bricks on anyone who tries to reopen the EU conversation. “Her problem, in the short term at least, will come less from MPs and candidates and more from high profile former ministers who will reopen the conversation in the media.”