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In Ireland’s interests to work with Andy Burnham as obligingly as possible on the Europe question
Good day to be Andy Burnham , who by all accounts just gave the best speech of any prime minister since Tony Blair . And not just according to the party – it was reluctantly admitted in the Daily Telegraph and the Spectator, too.
Meanwhile one pundit said it was the best performance he’s seen “in lifetime” while another emoted on his podcast: this was an “absolute vindication” of the new leader. Whereas the recently ousted Keir Starmer was “a Reliant Robin”, Burnham was more akin to a “Jaguar”. I have never seen such rapturous credulity – even from a group of journalists and columnists relatively prone to it.
They all moved against Starmer at the same time: first he was a safe pair of hands, then a wooden freak and, finally, an existential threat to Britain if he did not cede office. Burnham, meanwhile, went from a charming if folksy communicator to Britain’s greatest rhetorician since Winston Churchill overnight . There is nothing wrong with a bit of giddiness: these are gloomy times. But caution, restraint and – inelegant word incoming – perspicaciousness are more useful traits.
Never mind, because in Burnham there comes narrowly promising news for Ireland – no matter if his titanic abilities are being overstated.
“ Brexit has done more harm than good,” he told the Labour Party conference in Liverpool. Now time to reassess Britain’s long-term relationship with Europe – membership of the single market and customs union; rejoining in full; Norway-style alignment; Switzerland-style alignment, all on the table. After that decade-long misadventure, finally a directional shift. Let’s dispense with the obvious first.
If this means rejoining the European Union’s customs union and single market, then that is only good news for this island. Though frustrating that the final resolution to the Border question will always have been to undo the original sin of leaving the single market in the first place. And back to that necessary caution – one footnote in a conference address and an upcoming EU summit does not make any of this a foregone conclusion.
He might even hope we all forget he said it in the first place. But something is changing. Starmer – for no apparent reason or observable gain – wrote into his 2024 manifesto that he would never consider taking the UK back into the single market. By the time he was scrabbling to save his premiership he flirted with ditching that red line, hell bent on taking “Britain back to the heart of Europe”.
One poll in Politico this week suggests that 70 per cent of voters want closer ties with the EU, while another found 55 per cent of the country and 79 per cent of Labour voters would support rejoining in total. Expect a tone shift to slowly start emerging on the opinion pages, too – if the Telegraph says it, EU recapture is all but complete. Any Irish triumphalism at these facts will be misplaced.
I am sure it was satisfying for the high-minded here to point out the idiocy, folly, lunacy and madness of the Brexit project; to call it a “disgraceful” act of national self-harm, a favourite phrase at the time. Perhaps, at moments, the nastiness was even warranted – fair retaliation to a British press for the first time more obsessed with Ireland than the other way round.
Ireland, for example, was cast as a naive patsy of the Brussels machine, both cynically manipulating the Border question for its own gain, while also failing to understand the historical consequences of doing so. . I can remember what was written down on the pages. It is harder, however, to perfectly recall the unique nastiness of the situation.
The permanent diplomatic channels between these two countries survived the worst of those Brexit years, of course. But to suggest they went unstrained – as was suggested to me only recently – is a work of staggering historical revisionism. And that is not even to mention Leo Varadkar and Boris Johnson bickering on the steps of Government Buildings like there wasn’t some consequential statecraft to be getting along with. No need for any of that any more.
I am sure the “I told you so” button looks enormously tempting, but pressing it would be friendly fire. And Ireland needs its friends – what small, peripheral island outside of Nato surrounded by undersea cables wouldn’t right now? No, it is totally in Ireland’s interests to work with Burnham as obligingly as possible on the Europe question. For defence, economy and, yes, even those sentimentalities about “oldest and closest” neighbours.
Burnham’s talents may be overstated and the scale of the problems he faces underrated. That’s a toxic combination. But his speech was not a mere triumph of style over substance, nor is he an airhead succeeding off good vibes alone. If he can handle the volatile politics of Europe then that ought to be enough to say “Yes, that was the best speech since Tony Blair. ”
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