Mr Burnham does so want to live in the past. If he is not campaigning against Margaret Thatcher for daring to win elections in the 1980s and transforming the economy, he is campaigning to re open the conclusive Brexit vote of 2016.This is bad politics, bad for democracy and bad for our current economic prospects.
He wants us to know Russians might have tried to influence the Brexit vote. He could instead turn his study to what impact did the very public interventions of President Obama, the IMF and the OECD have with their gloomy forecasts and warnings? Better still he could accept the result and get on with his job of using the Brexit freedoms to promote UK prosperity.
He is floating three ways of going back on Brexit. There is the slow stealthy way of the Re Set. There is the crazy Lib Dem way of joining the Customs Union. There is the full throated way of seeking to rejoin. All three would make the UK worse off and undermine the democratic result of the UK’s largest ever popular vote.
The Re Set means giving away to the EU more of our money, more of our fish, more of our powers to choose our own laws for nothing back in return that is worth having. If being in the single market under so many EU laws worked we would have had faster growth when we were fully in the EU. It would be salami slicing, as the EU sent us a large and growing bill whilst changing rules so they could export more to us and we could make less for ourselves. Their package will put up energy costs even more and speed de industrialisation in the UK.
The Customs Union would be worse than useless. It means putting back tariffs on a large number of things we cannot make or grow ourselves which we import from non EU countries. It means levying a tax on components and raw materials our industry needs from non EU sources. It means losing or watering down all our trade deals with non EU countries which we have been able to agree now out of the EU. The Customs Union makes people poorer. It is protectionism, seeking to protect continental businesses from American or Asian competition. Why tax our consumers more when we are in a cost of living crisis? We already have tariff free trade with the EU itself. These people think tariff free in Europe is best so why impose tariffs on most of the world outside the EU?
Rejoining the EU would be impossible or would come at an unacceptable price. Why would the EU want us back in when the main Opposition parties would pledge to leave again? They would not offer us the same terms as we had. Doubtless the costs of membership would be much higher as their budget and borrowings are now so much larger. There would be no special UK rebate. We would probably have to pledge to join the Euro at some later date. An avalanche of new EU laws passed since we left would be visited upon us. The bulk of UK companies just serving the UK market would face all the needless extra costs of complying with EU laws which our exporters already do anyway.
All three routes to more EU would damage the interests of the UK and undermine its democracy.
October 13, 2026
Mr Burnham he could accept the result and get on with his job of using the Brexit freedoms to promote UK prosperity.
Along with that other totally brainless U.K. denier politician Ed Davy all he and his band of useless idiots want is to turn over the democratic vote of over 17 million who voted to leave his land of milk and honey and go along with his band of misfits to take us back in, news for you Burnham/Davy and all the other democracies deniers put it in your next General Election Manifesto so we can watch the demise of your party’s hopefully
October 13, 2026
Good morning.
If we were to re-join the EU we need to make it clear that, we will no longer need MP’s, Peers and the army of Civil Serpents. It should be made clear that, rule from Brussels means just that and all of Whitehall and Westminster can go. Why do we need to duplicate administration ?
October 13, 2026
We need far less government at least Harold needs to go and for there to be no unaccountable, unelected, anti-democratic leaders & government like EU bureaucrats. These people have even less interest in service the public in anyway than MPs do.
MEANWHILE Civil servants threaten to strike for a four-day week on full pay. PCS union prepares ballot to press for 10pc pay rise for fewer hours and remote working protections.
But 7m people are working for less than they could get in benefits. That even before the high cost of working like transport costs, work clothes, child care, lack of time to shop efficiently or do diy jobs is allowed for.
October 13, 2026
@Mark B – yes succinctly the EU replaces National Governments.
October 13, 2026
nor the £pound or military …..everything will be provided
October 13, 2026
Yes that is critical. Why have two ‘governments’ when only one has power?
October 13, 2026
Mr. Burnham seems to be getting away with it all so far.
October 13, 2026
…so far…
October 13, 2026
Wonderful! Your tone of hysteria is pitch perfect. If Brexit had done well, there’d be no need for this squealing. But it hasn’t. Brexit has failed
October 13, 2026
Do you have any responses to the substance of the piece?
October 13, 2026
@John Somers – the failure is all Parliaments. The question was stay or leave, nothing else, Parliament, being disappointed chose something entirely different, they chose to wedge the door open keep us tied to the EU so they could worm their way back in. What was called for explicitly in the question on the ballot paper was WTO terms, to be treated as all other countries in the World, a sovereign free-trading Nation – but no Parliament had to cripple us to prove their remain stance.
October 13, 2026
Government has failed and Brexit has been nobbled by it.
October 13, 2026
Squealing? Hold on, this isn’t John in Kent again is it?!
October 13, 2026
It is not Brexit that has failed, but the people whose job it was to make sure we took full advantage of the opportunities it gave us, beginning with Mrs May, but backed up by a great many others. They have never given it a chance.
October 13, 2026
Correct
October 13, 2026
Brexit is not an ‘event’ John – it is a process. We were in the EU for over 40 years and have been “out” for just six. In that time we have had Covid, Ukraine and Iran. More importantly, we have had no one on power apparently interested in taking advantage of the freedoms available.
However, as Lord Redwood points out, there is no evidence that leaving the EU has damaged us when compared to other EU economies. There is plenty of evidence that our ‘elite’ have fought hard to blunt or reverse it though. Cameron famously just walked away and Mrs May seemingly sabotaged the negotiations right from the get-go by appointing Olly Robinson as her ‘Chief Negotiator’.
Upset by too many immigrants? Don’t blame Brexit, blame the idiots who set the visa standard threshold at £26.2K pa, when the average wage at that time (2022) in this country was £33K. James Cleverly changed this to £38.7k – but it was too little and far too late to save the Conservatives. Labour don’t mind taking the credit of course.
October 13, 2026
Don’t forget the Benn bill that undermined the negotiating hand of the Government at the time. 😏
October 13, 2026
Some would argue that our politicians and civil service haven’t allowed ‘brexit’ to start …we’re no further on after a decade due to the blocks in parliament and whitehall
October 13, 2026
Only in proportion with what it could have been.
We have still grown at double the rate of Germany (the most powerful EU state) in the same period.
Even the Remain majority political class can’t completely overturn reality.
Now grow up and face facts.
October 13, 2026
Thanks for your comment John S, perhaps you would like to list the so called failures with some approved facts !
I have travelled Europe extensively, and I can assure you it is going downhill much faster than we are !
October 13, 2026
Russia and Brexit: here we go again. These Remainers never give up. The National Crime Agency found no evidence of Russian funding of the Leave campaign. No evidence was found of Russian involvement in Cambridge Analytica’s use of personal data either. The Remain camp still can’t accept that the majority of British voters didn’t need to be influenced by a foreign power to see that EU membership was bad for Britain. Oh sorry, there was one foreign agent who did influence Brexit. That was Angela Merkel, who opened the floodgates to migrants and made us think twice about the EU and its ‘freedom of movement’.
October 13, 2026
@Hat man – agreed
October 13, 2026
We’re presuming Russia would favour leave. Wouldn’t Russia favour remain? That way, all they need do is control the unelected officials in Brussels. Putin must be looking on in admiration at the EUSSR.
October 13, 2026
I would have thought Divide and conquer little old isolated UK…
October 13, 2026
Your assumption is correct …..are not the soviet union & the european union the same; both undemocratic and bureaucratic ….easy for manipulation and corruption
October 13, 2026
yes Burnham is bad, but he is uniting vast numbers of the indoctrinated left, the open doors immigration supporters, the anti white racists, those who want ever more benefits never having contributed, those who like to destroy the historic UK.
unless the parties which are not extreme lefty find common ground and unite around the obvious policies demanded in pubs up and down the land every day we are doomed.
radical stuff is needed.
October 13, 2026
Burnham is worse than Starmer …and thats saying something
October 13, 2026
Deflection, deflection, deflection. You could surmise he either doesn’t understand the job, his duties, what management or government means or he loathes and ‘hates’ the UK and its people so much he wants to destroy them.
He is definitely or defiantly, or both, picking up Starmer’s banner and running around the World, being AWOL and refusing to ensure safety, security, resilience and self-reliance of the UK and its People. he is avoiding the job, off in a Walter Mitty World of his imagination. What he is demonstrating he is not fit for purpose, not a fit person to lead the Nation.
October 13, 2026
Don’t forget Burnham’s £2 bus fare cap …..history will remember him for that
October 13, 2026
And I now understand why Shakespeare made his wisest character a fool (the fool in King Lear) ..
Not saying I’m wise, but as I get older and deeper into religion, I find that humour/comedy (to a certain degree – not too much either) and wisdom go hand in hand.
Not surprising. Sarah laughed and called her son Isaac which means, ‘one who laughs.’
And The King of Kings says, ‘be like little children.’ For little children, comedy/humour is essential!
October 14, 2026
A £2 bus fare, paid from the whole of the UK’s general taxation. Or in other words those that yet again don’t get to share the privileged, don’t even see busses, are paying for those that can afford the standard price.
Track that back to all the give-aways. EV’s funded by those that cant even afford cars etc – Burnham’s and Labours version of Socialism
October 13, 2026
EVERYONE is deflecting! Me too ..
If our great country is to be properly sovereign, united and happy, then we need to turn to The Christian God for that to happen. Man (me too) is too daft and corrupt to do it alone.
October 13, 2026
Under this and past parliaments (and our own monarch) , they’ve promoted and endorse many other god’s as part of their diversity plan
October 13, 2026
Hi. And only The Christian God can get us through all this mess – whether ‘diversity plan’ or transgender or WOKE or extremism in politics or whatever heresy rears its ugly head!
Keep fighting. But keeping smiling too (never lose sense of humour – so many now have just let their sense of humour be crushed).
Deo gloria
October 14, 2026
Wise words ….our own government could learn from them
October 13, 2026
Beyond any shadow of a doubt. Poor chap is seriously limited. How did we allow this quality of potential bus driver to get into power?
October 13, 2026
And despite all that Lord JR. Burnham is already easing us in via the back door. There will be no referendum to rejoin, just a total sell-out.
We need a general election ………..
October 13, 2026
The Labour manifesto would include “rejoin the EU” to pick up the Greens and Lib Dems 🤔
October 13, 2026
The Trump “Administration” gets more and more unreal every day
In 2022 the US Senate passed a law (100-0) making it illegal for the US – or any US companies – to do even a penny’s worth of business with Russia
So Trump’s unilateral “deal” with Putin, the Russian war criminal, to backstab Ukraine is dead in the water
There is not a US company that will be able to handle Russian diesel (which is likely to be contaminated anyway due to poor quality control) regardless of Trump’s bluster, “deals” or promises. Any company in America that touches Russian diesel will be prosecuted, you can be sure of that
The only beneficiaries of this will be China and India. A nice reward for Emperor Xi after he provided the IRGC with substantial military support during the recent bombing campaign – enabling the Ayatollahs to inflict substantial destruction on nearly every American base in the region. With heavy casualties.
October 14, 2026
Putin, little doubt, has something on Trump. As well as indirectly financing Trump and family in some important way. As well as Trump’s protection in some way.
Putin doesn’t have total control over Trump as Putin doesn’t have total control over the US political system nor over the CIA (but he’s working there).
All this mess won’t end until Putin is gone.
October 13, 2026
Strikes me that rejoining the EU is something you float when you have no real ideas.
Ed Davey being a prime example
October 13, 2026
its strange burnhams first dictat as supreme leader was ending sleeping rough, yet I walk around and there are still lots of rough sleepers.
October 13, 2026
The pot calling the kettle black re harking back to past, however it is interesting that he says that Russia interfered with the results.I cannot see the interest Putin would have with such a diminished Island.
I certainly cannot see why Russia is still our enemy,or Americas for that reason.Talk about living in the past!It’s about time the big boys got together to end all these conflicts Russia together with America could do wonders to stop despotic , abusive regimes…it’s all so silly.
October 13, 2026
Russia continues to be very active in cyber threats against the UK.
It’s high time those in the Kremlin got a life.
October 13, 2026
It’s all a bit desperate. They will not like to enter into a debate on the issues above as the public, once exposed to the arguments, probably won’t back any of the three routes. It is indeed a valid point that there were many overt attempts from abroad to influence the vote, and many people must have voted remain due to these combinations of threats and warnings. The uk govt itself used official channels to campaign for remain. Perhaps the conclusion is that none of these attempts to coerce an electorate work.
Nevertheless it’s interesting that Burnham thinks reversing Brexit is an election winner. It will be interesting to see whether he’s right. Certainly anyone who doesn’t want to rejoin, or become a colony in some respect of the eu, needs to work to ensure there isn’t another Labour govt. It will be too late after another parliament.
October 13, 2026
Rejoining is impossible because the UK can’t comply with the Maastricht treaty on a maximum 60% debt to GDP ratio. Can we really see the Labour backbenchers voting for the vast cuts to benefits to get the country’s finances back in order?
Or are they saying the UK can pick and choose which EU treaties it wants to sign up to?
October 13, 2026
Just want to thank you Sir for your relentless, forensic focus on the truth about the EU and so many other matters. Your energy and output is astonishing.
October 13, 2026
To renege on the people’s 2016 decision would be the act of a third-world dictator, not a British Prime Minister. What has OUR country come to? What has happened to the socialists who preach democracy?
Do they no longer have a voice, or are there so few of them in 2026 that the Labour Party is no longer the party of the workers?
October 14, 2026
Anyway given the demographic churn that has taken place since 2016, reversing Brexit amounts to disrespecting the dead. Who would want to do such a thing?
October 15, 2026
You assume that new borns are all EU fans like you hefner.
October 15, 2026
Do you mean the under-11s born since June 2016. There are still a few years before we know what they think.
I assume ‘you assume … ‘: in your posts that makes a lot of road … without actually going an extra … inch forward. But keep on trucking. Don’t despair, one day you might get there.
October 13, 2026
Some years ago Michel Barnier said that Starmer would be the one to take the UK back into the EU. Prophetic words which are being proven virtually correct with the arrival of Mr Burnham.
All but a few MPs are very much pro EU, and just about all of those within the parties of the left have no experience of working in the commercial world. They, and much of the mainstream media, have been successful in making the ‘Brexit has failed’ impression take hold. Hence the ease with which commercial facts and data supporting Brexit can be avoided.
Ultimately it’s the Conservative Party in government which is most culpable for all this. Brexit should by now have been proven to be clearly and unambiguously beneficial to all but the most extreme remainers/rejoiners. Instead it’s being used, along with continuing illegal immigration and ever increasing energy costs, to further destroy our way of life and accelerate the UK’s decline.
October 13, 2026
It is obviously a great deal easier to harp back to the past, than face up to the difficulties of the present, which is what Mr Burnham should be doing, but I did see that he had refused the Health Secretary’s request for extra money, which must be a first!
October 13, 2026
That could just be the straw that broke the lion’s back.
More firms would go bust as a result and startups would simply fade away, along with any investors we had left.
Is Burnham planning to give us 3 choices on his referendum paper? Will he even include the status quo?
His warped deceit on Brexit being a bad idea suggests that any referendum will not be honestly presented.
October 13, 2026
“He [our Fabian PM] wants us to know Russians might have tried to influence the Brexit vote.”
This is typical far Left deflection and disinformation tactics. If the Russians are the extreme left communists and the EU are attempting to put together another undemocratic, authoritarian, far left USSR style state, run at the time by Mrs. Merkel who, when she lived in East Germany, was a senior member of the Communist Agitprop organisation, and who let flood in millions of ME migrants to destroy Europe’s social cohesion, it would make more sense if the Russians were assisting the Remain side rather than the Brexit side. Of course the Far Left want us to be controlled by the EU for socialism depends upon making and keeping people poor. Another example is the Left’s climate crisis hoax which would not have been invented if its “solution”, Net Zero, wasn’t sabotaging our energy and consequently destroying our industry, living standards and national security. It’s time we had a referendum on Net Zero.
October 13, 2026
Sir John,
We do not actually know , how far Mr. Burnham wishes to develop the relationship with the EU, what we do know that a lot of countries in the EU have had much more growth than the UK in the past ten years and the EU have undertaken many more trade agreements since we left.
However, in spite of all these changes and the lack of success with Brexit you are calling all your so called negatives even before we know anymore.
So , please get off your high horse and respect that 2/3 of the population think that Brexit has not worked and want a change.
We need a change and Brexit is not going to make the change required.
Reply The UK has made more and better trade deals since we left.We have outgrown the major EU economies despite not reversing enough the damaging EU laws and taxes. We would have to pay around £30 bn a year to go back in. How would you raise all that extra tax ?
October 13, 2026
I think Mayor Burnham PM is out of his mind if he imagines getting closer to the EU will do anything other than weaken our Nation and weaken our economy.. Maybe that is what he wants to do? The EU is in danger of actually falling apart imminently with France experiencing riots and sectarian strife. Germany has closed or is closing down its entire manufacturing strength that supported the Euro because its power policies are every bit as bad as ours but without their own oil industry to revive once they realise renewable energy is unreliable.
Burnham is looking for a big policy to differentiate his term from Starmer’s as head of Labour. His Co-Op background is showing through along with his lack of candour. Some say Burnham makes things up?
I could not possibly comment….
October 13, 2026
Nice article LordR, it took a referendum to get us to join the EEC(EU), it took a referendum to get us out of the EU …it should therefore took a referendum to get us back in the EU
Closer alignment/trading relationship, regulation and joining some EU institutions via the back-door is undemocratic
October 13, 2026
My concern is that too many closed eyed dogmatic remainers will actually believe him, as will many indoctrinated voting of the younger generation, promises of more magic money tree economics, more financial payouts, more redistribution of so called wealth etc etc.
October 13, 2026
given our kind host’s clear exposition of reasons why the less we have to do with Brussels the better why
am I not surprised at the lack of air-time invited by the BBC and other leading “news” and current
affairs programmes! Yesterday GB News did air some research which makes clear that Burnham is
on the right track with his knocking at the EU Door.)Over 80% of Members of Parliament are remainers
( probably even greater in the HoL).Regrettably it includes conservative members.
October 13, 2026
The EU is a failing organisation, German’s industrial base has been severely weakened largely because of Net Zero policies and Merkel’s crazy decision to close down Nuclear Power. Politically Merz is floundering with the rise of the AFD party. Germany’s growth is weaker than France and Italy. France has a debt crisis worse than ours and like Germany is politically unstable. Our growth, though weak, outstrips all three major nations. Why on earth would we want to join an organisation in such a mess? I don’t understand Burnham’s logic whatsoever. There is no economic advantage for us to join the Single Market or Customs Union. He should be concentrating on stopping the wars in Ukraine and Iran, stopping illegal migration and address the cost of living crisis. He lacks leadership, wisdom, experience and gravitas to be our Prime Minister.