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The Brexit debate has come crawling back from the dead to dominate Labour leadership chatter after this weekend – with a firm split emerging in the party’s senior ranks
Brexit has dominated the debate as Labour nears a major leadership contest(Image: AFP via Getty Images)
The Brexit debate is being relitigated this week after Labour leadership hopeful Wes Streeting said it was time to rejoin the bloc – insisting it “was a catastrophic mistake” to leave.
The former Health Secretary prompted a range of reactions over the weekend when he argued during his leadership pitch at the Blairite Progress Conference that the move to leave had left the country “less wealthy, less powerful, and less in control than at any point since before the Industrial Revolution”.
While his statement found agreement across the Labour ranks, it has also found significant disagreement after the party ran on preserving the result of the 2016 referendum in 2024.
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Speaking to the Progress Conference while he made the case for his leadership, Streeting said:“In 2026, the British people increasingly see that in a dangerous world we must club together, both to rebuild our economy and trade, and improve our defence against the shared threats from Russian aggression and America First.
“The biggest economic opportunity we have is on our doorstep. We need a new special relationship with the EU, because Britain’s future lies with Europe – and one day back in the European Union.”
Labour figures were quick to voice their confusion about the statement, with a war of words breaking out in the party’s top ranks. Lisa Nandy, the Culture Secretary, said her former colleague’s remarks were “a bit odd”, while Makerfield by-election hopeful and Labour titan Andy Burnham saying he was “not advocating that in this byelection” as he awaited nomination.
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More cutting comments came from the back benches, with Jonathan Hinder, the MP for Pendle and Clitheroe, saying most voters would believe he was “off his rocker” if he started speaking about rejoining the EU after the years of chaos Brexit caused.
He added: “I’m astonished that we’ve got to this stage so quickly in this Labour leadership contest, because that’s what it is. If I went into the Wallace Hartley pub in my constituency and I said to them ‘you know that thing we just did which paralyzed our politics, which tore our country apart, that we said we were done with, we were leaving in the past because it’s finally been delivered?’.
“If I said to them we’re going to reopen it, and we’re going to reopen it all. In fact, the single market is going to be back on the table with freedom of movement, the single currency, Schengen, what’s our budget arrangements going to be with the EU?
“They would rightly look at me as if I had gone mad. They’d say, ‘you are off your rocker if you think the priority for the British people right now is to restart this debate’.” Members of the public remain largely split over Brexit, but slightly in favour of rejoin, according to the latest polls.
A YouGov poll from April this year found that a majority of 2,104 Brits – 55 percent – wanted to rejoin, while a smaller percentage of 33 percent preferred to remain outside the bloc.
