The Europe Burnham wants to rejoin is gone Returning to free movement is a fantasy of the progressive Panglossian Jason Cowley The Europe question is back at the centre of Labour politics. The omerta over Brexit and its consequences that prevailed during the Starmer premiership has been shattered. As he prepares for the UK-EU summit in Brussels on November 20, Andy Burnham wants a new relationship with Europe and, unlike Keir Starmer, is ruling nothing out, and he has even raised the possibility of a return to free movement. Under Starmer’s leadership, the Labour government worked assiduously to rebuild relations with the EU. The aim, as Nick Thomas-Symonds, the former minister for the constitution and EU relations, explained to me, was “as close as possible without freedom of movement”. Burnham has no such red lines. One of the reasons Burnham is popular on the Labour benches is that he speaks with an attractive candour so different from the stilted contortions of Starmer. Kemi ...