Wes Streeting told a weekend conference that he would like to see Britain rejoin the EU one day, casting the debate over Brexit back into Labour politics just as the party braces for fresh arguments over Europe. The health secretary spoke in vague terms about a new EU “special relationship”, but his comments were enough to underline how unsettled the issue remains inside the party.
Streeting made the remarks at a Progress conference over the weekend, where he said he would like the UK to “rejoin one day”. That put him at odds with the government’s current line at a moment when talks with Brussels are active but stalled in key areas, from agriculture to UK participation in the EU’s electricity market. The central dispute is over a youth experience deal that the EU sees as crucial to the whole package and that would let EU students pay domestic fees to attend UK universities.
The state of the talks matters now because the UK government has already made clear that it wants even closer relations with the EU, while Brussels is increasingly of the view that Britain must either stay where it is or choose something much bolder. Under the 2024 manifesto, the UK will not rejoin the single market or customs union, and it will not accept freedom of movement, leaving ministers trying to improve ties without crossing the red lines that helped define Labour’s election offer.
That leaves Labour leaders under pressure to say where they stand before the debate hardens further. Brexit is back within the party, and most Labour members are remain backers who regret leaving Europe, which helps explain why remarks that might once have been treated as background noise now land with force.
The politics are getting tighter still because Andy Burnham’s decision to run for parliament adds another wrinkle. Makerfield is a leave-backing constituency, Reform UK are Labour’s main opponents there, and Burnham switched to a more sceptical stance yesterday, a sign of how quickly the party’s tone on Europe is changing as it looks over its shoulder at voters who backed leave and at members who never wanted it in the first place.
Nigel Farage has long framed the argument in terms of “betrayal”, and that charge still hangs over any move that looks like edging back toward Brussels. For Labour, the task now is less about reopening the referendum and more about deciding whether a soft reset on Europe can survive the pressure from its own activists, its leave-voting seats and the hard facts of talks that have already run into the sand.
