Burnham says UK has 'lost more than we gained' through Brexit as he pushes for closer EU ties
The prime minister accused the Conservatives of burning bridges with Brussels and said a new EU deal on food and farming would cut prices and help Welsh exporters.
By Olga Menon ·
Andy Burnham has said the UK has "lost more than we gained" since leaving the European Union, his latest in a string of comments criticising Brexit as he prepares to seek closer ties with Brussels.
Speaking at the Welsh Labour conference on Saturday, the prime minister accused the Conservatives of delivering what he called "a harsher and harder Brexit than people thought they were getting when they voted in 2016", saying the party had "burned all of our bridges" with the bloc in the aftermath of the referendum.
Burnham said a new agreement on food and farming that he hopes to secure with the EU in the coming days would "get food prices down" and put more money in the pockets of British exporters. He said he wanted to help Welsh businesses, naming Welsh farmers and exporters of Welsh shellfish and Welsh lamb among those who could benefit.
The prime minister is due to meet European Commission president Ursula von der Leyen and European Council president António Costa at a summit in Brussels on 20 November, where deals on food and drink, carbon emissions and youth exchange could be signed. He has said the agreements, which also cover emissions trading and a youth mobility scheme, could raise GDP by 0.4%, about £17bn, and he will also "explore options" for a different long-term relationship with Brussels.
"We need to be willing to take difficult decisions to get the cost of living down," he told the conference, adding that he would lead on the issue as prime minister and try to get the best deal he could for Wales.
Burnham has recently said he is open to rejoining the single market, the customs union or even going "all the way" by rejoining the EU, but on Saturday he said voters would ultimately be "the boss" of any changes. He also reiterated his commitment to Labour's manifesto red lines, which rule out returning to the customs union, the single market or free movement, and said he would respect the referendum result.
The government has already made several announcements that would tie the UK more closely to Brussels. Earlier this month the Guardian reported that the UK was prepared to spend up to £450m a year to give EU students discounted university tuition fees if Brussels allowed Britain access to the Made in Europe industrial programme. Earlier this week Hamish Falconer, the cabinet minister in charge of EU talks, said Britain was willing to discuss paying towards infrastructure schemes in poorer parts of the EU in return for access to the European electricity market.
Despite Burnham's recent pro-EU comments, senior figures in Brussels have said they want to see the UK begin paying for access to the European schemes it says it wants. Michel Barnier, the EU's former Brexit negotiator, told the BBC last week that Britain could not rejoin the single market "à la carte", saying: "There will be no possibility to have one freedom and not the other. The four freedoms are clearly the four conditions to be inside a single market." He added that, as he had often said during the Brexit negotiations, "there is no cherrypicking".
