Things are warming up on the Brexit front. Andy Burnham has apparently written to his cabinet ministers, setting out his position on Europe and asking them to be “aligned and disciplined” regarding the upcoming summit with the EU. He told them he would set out the next steps as part of his ten-year plan to be published later this year. He also said both the UK and EU have changed since Brexit and the future relationship will “depend on practical arrangements that are realistic for both sides, and responsive to this new reality." He added that any “fundamental change" to this relationship "would be for the public to decide and a matter for the next Parliament.” So, there we have it.
Remainers can take heart. If it really is the public who decides, Britain will be back in the EU sometime in the next decade.
The last two polls on whether Britain should rejoin or stay out of the EU are very close to a 2:1 majority for reversing Brexit. The polls, by two different pollsters, Deltapoll and YouGov, show 65% and 66% in favour of rejoining. This is just 1% less than the 67% recorded in the 1975 referendum (67.2% in favour of staying in and 32.8% voting to leave). The average of the last six polls (see below) is 64-36%, but slightly skewed by a survey from BMG Research, which, for reasons that are not clear, regularly polls massively lower than any other pollster.
The developing narrative is that Burnham has single-handedly and unnecessarily reopened the debate against the wishes of the voters. Nothing could be further from the truth. Starmer was, up until last week, resisting calls to reverse Brexit and no doubt he would have continued doing so until the pressure became too much. Burnham is simply responding to what the public is increasingly demanding.
In fact, Starmer, addressing the British Irish Chamber of Commerce on Friday, also now seems to be belatedly edging closer to Burnham’s position. He said:
“A stronger Europe is vital and the UK must be at the heart of it, Europe has twice been caught asleep, failing to anticipate and prepare for predictable events.”
It’s difficult to see how we can be at the heart of Europe while outside the EU.
Even the former chancellor, Rachel Reeves, a remainer who has hitherto been quite negative about rejoining, in a Times article today is openly arguing that Britain’s future is in the EU. It looks like they are all coming out of the closet.
"I do believe Britain’s future lies in the European Union." Reeves declares for rejoin, perhaps the most senior figure in Labour to do so www.thetimes.com/uk/politics/...— Matthew Holehouse (@matthewholehouse.bsky.social) 31 October 2026 at 22:35
Of course, nobody knows if a referendum held now would replicate the current polling, but it’s not impossible. Some people might argue that a debate on the facts would create an even bigger majority; we just don’t know. Let’s assume for the sake of argument that the polls are broadly accurate.
It means current public opinion is roughly the same as it was in 1975 when British voters first confirmed overwhelmingly that they did indeed want to stay in the European Economic Community or EEC as it was then, based on the deal signed by Edward Heath in 1973, and slightly amended by Harold Wilson.
The result was more than enough to convince the Eurosceptics that their day was done for the next 20-25 years until Hannan and Farage began to agitate to leave in the 1990s.
The coming debate will this time be shaped not by fantasies and delusions, or by misinformation and lies but by facts and the everyday lived experience of the growth-inhibiting trade and travel barriers erected by the TCA. Brexiteers are anxious to avoid ‘relitigating’ Brexit because they know they will lose. The public’s mind is made up. Unlike in 2016, when Theresa May used the tautology Brexit meant Brexit, we now KNOW and understand precisely what it means. There is no getting around the truth this time.
The leading advocates of the 2016 leave campaigns have been revealed as liars, charlatans and peddlers of distortions. We have the evidence in their own discredited words. Any remaining faith in them can surely be easily broken. They are a busted flush.
However, not all remainers are as committed as they might be. Take the present chancellor, for example. On his website, the day after the referendum he said he had ‘campaigned hard’ for Remain and was ‘dismayed’ by the result. But he understood the ‘deep concerns’ of the folks who voted to leave. Labour accepted the verdict and would work hard to see the decision implemented.
I don’t remember him campaigning vigorously, and I have never heard him criticise the decision as a mistake. He sounds as if he was a secret Brexiteer toeing the party line and following Corbyn’s half-hearted leadership. He now appears to be setting himself against the PM as Ian Dunt points out.
While Burnham has openly said he would like to see Britain rejoin in his lifetime (he’s 56), Healey doesn’t expect that to happen in his (Healey is ten years older). The two are not quite on the same page.
Jonathan Reynolds, Secretary of State for Business, Innovation, Science and Trade and President of the Board of Trade, appears to be in a similar place. In The Sun, he joins Healey in distancing himself from Burnham. Reynolds says he wouldn’t rejoin the EU because of the ‘drift to the right’. And perhaps Conservatives wouldn’t if in the future there was a perceived drift to the left. It’s a stupid short-term argument in a continent governed by left and right parties that are constantly changing.
Jonathan Reynolds says UK needs to know more about where EU heading before it opts for much closer relationship - www.theguardian.com/politics/liv...— Andrew Sparrow (@andrewsparrowgdn.bsky.social) 30 October 2026 at 16:25
Lewis Goodall, the former Newsnight presenter and now podcaster with The Newsagents, has a Substack blog discussing the budget, where he says he voted to remain in 2016 but now worries “that the EU has evolved, much for the worse, in our absence.” He goes on:
“Though the damage to our economy and manufacturing sector in particular has been bad (and could get worse as the Made in Europe agenda moves forward) there are areas of emergent technology where the British state could use its independent regulatory powers to provide us with competitive advantage which we should think twice about losing: AI, gene editing, financial software, medical technology and so on.”
There is zero evidence that we can regulate better than the EU in these sectors, and if Goodall thinks the EU would allow the UK to export into the single market with a competitive advantage over its own citizens and workers, one has to wonder where he's been these last forty years. What is the point of becoming competitive only to be locked out of the nearest and largest export market? It's another ridiculously contrived argument
Simon Jenkins, the Guardian columnist, also voted to remain but without any great enthusiasm. In July 2016 he wrote an article proclaiming: Ignore the prophets of doom. Brexit will be good for Britain. He now writes: Opening the EU debate again is clearly a political minefield. But we have to do it. He describes Brexit as "a very grave act of self-harm" and says Burnham is "right to address it."
The tide is turning, but we still need to keep focused on the prize. Not all the pennies have dropped yet.
Brexit was the result of the political class recklessly subcontracting a highly complex decision to the ignorant and ill-informed. It was not leadership. By leading the debate and pointing the way forward, Burnham is doing the opposite. He should be congratulated.
Midterm elections
Voting for the US midterm elections is underway and will be counted after polling stations close this Tuesday. Trump is on track to lose control of both houses of Congress.
However, it’s notable that the Republican Speaker of the House of Representatives, Mike Johnson, has declared his party will win and the polls, which unanimously point to the opposite conclusion, are all fake. He’s not the only one. Trump has said similar things. This is preparing his supporters for what is to come.
The president has frequently claimed elections in America are open to fraud, although, as we know, this is invariably when he or his supporters lose. If he wins, everything is fine. For someone so concerned about election integrity, his administration has essentially gutted the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency, the very agency charged with ensuring elections are free and fair.
Last year he cut staffing at CISA by a third, and plans to reduce it by another third next year. The White House asked staff at CISA last year to secretly obtain a voting machine and hack into it, without revealing any security flaws to the manufacturer. In the end CISA didn't do it, but this does not mean nobody did.
Ask yourself, why would any administration do this? It must be to weaken oversight, and either provide a means to manipulate results or create after-election doubts about the legitimacy of results they don’t like.
There will be multiple legal challenges to many of the results across the USA next week and throughout November and December. I am not convinced there is any practical limit to what lengths Trump and his acolytes will go to to save themselves.
America is teetering on the edge of the abyss.
