Informative · UK politics

Andy Burnham just opened the door to reversing Labour's free movement pledge

25 October 2026 · 25 October 2026Share

Prime Minister Andy Burnham arrives at 10 Downing Street with his wife. File photo. UK Prime Minister · CC BY 4.0

Prime Minister Andy Burnham just said Britain should have an honest discussion about rejoining the EU's free movement rules.

He said it to The Sunday Times, in an interview published about an hour ago.

And here's the thing. Free movement was the whole point of Brexit. Ending it was the deal.

So what did he actually say?

He says migration has changed shape since Brexit. People used to come and go. Now they settle here for good.

He says quote "I think we've just got to have an honest discussion about those things."

That's the Prime Minister putting the ban on free movement back on the table.

He didn't stop there. He brought up Eurodac. That's the EU's shared fingerprint and asylum database. Britain lost access to it when it left the EU. Andy Burnham says Britain should weigh up what it gave up, not just look at free movement on its own.

But he did draw a line. He ruled out rejoining the euro. He ruled out rejoining Schengen, the EU's open-borders zone. And he says any big change to Britain's relationship with the EU would need a general election first.

So why raise it now? More than a year before that election is even due?

Well, he meets EU leaders at a summit in Brussels in under a month, on 20 November. And last month, at the Labour conference, he told MPs that leaving the EU had done more harm than good and hasn't given Britain control. So this interview shows his review now reaches all the way to free movement itself.

The rest of this story is for Silver and Gold members.

Now look at the numbers. Annual net migration has climbed from 330,000 before Brexit to 900,000 now. That's with free movement gone and a points-based system running instead.

Andy Burnham even used his own father, Roy, as the example. Roy moved to Germany for work in the 1990s, back when free movement made that easy.

So what about the promise Labour made? Its 2024 manifesto ruled out rejoining the single market, the customs union or free movement. Full stop. Andy Burnham was elected on that promise less than two years ago.

Nigel Farage, the Reform UK leader, says he's broken it. He says quote "This is a total betrayal of Brexit Britain and his Makerfield pitch." He also says Andy Burnham is wrong about the history, calling him deluded for suggesting migration worked differently while Britain was in the EU. And he says Reform UK will fight what he calls this dishonesty.

Chris Philp, the Shadow Home Secretary, has responded too. He says Andy Burnham knows full well that a return to free movement would mean handing back control of Britain's borders. He says the British people voted to end it, for good.

And the government? It has said nothing beyond Andy Burnham's own words.

So what don't we know? Whether he means full free movement, or just a partial deal tied to data-sharing like Eurodac. And when any decision would actually get made.

So right now, Britain is walking into that Brussels summit with its own Prime Minister asking the question nobody has answered.

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Andy Burnham just opened the door to reversing Labour's free movement pledge

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