Burnham opens debate on restoring EU free movement

What happened

Prime Minister Andy Burnham has opened the prospect of restoring free movement between Britain and the European Union as he considers a wider change in relations with the bloc. He wants a public debate grounded in evidence about migration and the choices facing the UK after Brexit.

His comments come before a summit with EU leaders in Brussels on 20 November. Burnham is considering several possible arrangements, ranging from participation in the customs union or single market to a return to full EU membership. Joining the single market would require accepting free movement.

The prime minister argued that migration during Britain’s EU membership differed from the pattern experienced more recently. He described people, often younger adults, coming to Britain for a period before returning home, while acknowledging that the system had also presented substantial challenges.

Burnham drew attention to the opportunities the same arrangements gave British citizens to spend time living in Europe. His argument places reciprocal rights for people on both sides of the Channel alongside the question of who should be allowed to move to Britain.

He nevertheless set limits on the relationship he could support. Burnham said he could not envisage recommending that Britain replace sterling with the euro or enter the Schengen Area, where participating countries have removed routine passport checks at their shared borders.

The background

The discussion reaches into territory that Labour’s 2024 election manifesto explicitly excluded. That programme ruled out restoring free movement, joining the single market or entering a customs union. Burnham has previously committed himself to those positions, making the party’s existing electoral mandate central to any proposed change.

His own route to Downing Street adds a further political complication. Burnham won the Makerfield by-election in Greater Manchester in June, representing a constituency that voted to leave the EU in 2016. During that campaign, he said he did not intend to reopen the Brexit argument and was not proposing that Britain consider rejoining.

He became prime minister the following month. By September, he was saying that the eventual destination of a closer relationship could extend to EU membership itself. The latest intervention develops that position by addressing migration, one of the most contentious issues in the referendum campaign.

During the 2016 campaign, supporters of leaving focused on the ability of EU citizens to move to Britain under European rules. Free movement is reciprocal: it concerns citizens’ rights to live and work across participating countries, rather than simply the admission of people into the UK.

The economic options under discussion are not interchangeable. The single market centres on common rules supporting the movement of goods, services, capital and people. A customs union concerns the treatment of goods, including customs duties and a shared approach to tariffs on imports from outside its membership.

Both single market participation and a customs union would entail accepting some rules set by the EU. Full membership would be a broader institutional relationship. The choices therefore involve not only the desired level of economic integration, but also which European obligations Britain would be prepared to accept.

How migration has changed

Figures from the Office for National Statistics show why the comparison between the referendum period and subsequent years requires care. Net migration stood at 335,000 in the 12 months to June 2016, the month Britain voted to leave. That was close to the highest level recorded at the time.

Net migration measures the difference between the number of people arriving to live in a country and the number leaving. It is not a count of all arrivals, and a change in the total can reflect movements in either direction. The measure also covers migration beyond the EU.

After Brexit, the figure rose much further. It reached a record 944,000 in the year ending March 2023, following a rise in overseas workers encouraged to come to Britain by Boris Johnson’s Conservative government as the country emerged from the Covid pandemic.

The subsequent decline has been substantial. Net migration stood at 171,000 last year, well below the level around the referendum and close to half the June 2016 figure. The post-Brexit period has therefore included both a much higher peak and a lower recent total than the referendum-era benchmark.

Those totals describe the scale of net migration, rather than the age of migrants or how long individuals stay. Burnham’s comparison concerns those characteristics as well as numbers: he argues that movement involving a stay followed by a return home differs from other migration patterns.

What people are saying

Conservative shadow home secretary Chris Philp rejected the prospect of reviving free movement. He argued that it would surrender control over admission to Britain and permit migration from across Europe without the controls his party supports. For Philp, the referendum result rules out a return to that arrangement.

Reform UK leader Nigel Farage also opposed Burnham’s intervention, accusing him of betraying Brexit supporters. Farage connected the comments directly to Makerfield and the position Burnham took when seeking election there, turning the debate into a question about promises made to his own constituents.

Farage additionally disputed the prime minister’s distinction between migration during EU membership and migration now. His response challenges the premise of Burnham’s case, rather than only the policy that might follow from it, and signals Reform UK’s opposition to reopening this part of the European relationship.

Burnham’s position combines an acknowledgement of the difficulties associated with free movement with an argument for examining its benefits. He has highlighted younger Britons’ ability to experience life elsewhere in Europe, presenting the issue as one involving outward mobility as well as inward migration.

What happens next

Burnham intends to use the period around the November summit to explain the different options to the British public. The Brussels meeting will provide an opportunity to discuss his approach with EU leaders, while the domestic debate will concern how far a new relationship should go.

He has said that fundamental changes would require a mandate at a general election, which is due by 2029. That places a political condition on the larger proposals: an election would be the means of seeking authority for a departure from the programme on which Labour previously stood.

The currency question would also matter if Britain sought membership. The UK retained the pound when it belonged to the EU, while the bloc has pressed new members to adopt the euro. Burnham’s stated opposition to changing currency would therefore be relevant to the terms of any membership proposal.

Schengen presents a separate issue from the right to live and work abroad. Its focus is passport-free travel across participating countries’ internal borders. Keeping that distinction clear matters when assessing proposals, because free movement rights and the arrangements governing border checks address different aspects of crossing between countries.

Why this matters

For UK residents considering work or a period living in Europe, the debate concerns reciprocal rights that could shape their choices. For people moving in the other direction, it concerns the rules governing access to life and employment in Britain.

For businesses, the choice between a customs union, single market participation and membership would determine the scope of any closer economic relationship. For voters, Burnham’s election-mandate condition makes those choices part of a future decision about Britain’s direction, rather than simply a matter for the Brussels summit.