Prime Minister Andy Burnham has accused the Conservatives of giving Britain a "harsher and harder Brexit" than voters were promised in 2016, as he heads into a make-or-break week of negotiations before a UK-EU summit in Brussels on November 20.
Speaking at the Welsh Labour conference in Llandudno on Saturday, Burnham said the Conservatives had "burned all of our bridges" with the EU in the aftermath of the referendum. "I think we've lost more than we've gained over the last 10 years, and, actually, I think the Conservatives gave Britain a harsher and harder Brexit than people thought they were getting when they voted in 2016," he said, adding that he would seek the best deal he could for Wales.
A new poll published on Saturday showed 52 percent of voters in Northern Ireland agree the UK should rejoin the EU under standard member obligations, with 38 percent opposed. The survey, from Queen's University Belfast's Testing the Temperature project conducted by LucidTalk, also found 77 percent of respondents see a clear need for "serious dialogue" on the UK's long-term relationship with the EU, while 69 percent said there is currently insufficient information for an informed debate. Support for rejoining was highest among SDLP, Sinn Fein and Alliance voters, and opposition was led by TUV voters at 92 percent, followed by DUP voters at 84 percent and UUP voters at 63 percent.
Burnham is expected to sign new agreements on food and farming, emissions trading and a youth mobility scheme at the summit on November 20, which he says could add 0.4 percent to British GDP. The government claims the economy will eventually see 5.1 billion pounds a year in benefits from the reset.
The centrepiece is a sanitary and phytosanitary agreement, largely agreed in May, that would remove the vast majority of physical checks and most of the accompanying certificates and paperwork on plant, food and animal trade. Environment Secretary Angela Eagle said the deal would "dissolve" about 60 million pounds a year in costs for the horticulture industry, according to calculations by the industry body the Horticultural Trades Association, covering plant health inspections, phytosanitary certificates, document and identity checks, port fees, agents' fees, extra labour and haulage.
"If we get the ink dry on 20 November, which I very much hope we will ... all of that uncertainty, the extra cost, the paperwork and the potential problems if things get stuck at borders would all disappear," Eagle told The Guardian during a visit to a plant nursery in Kent.
The deal is not expected to take effect until the first quarter of 2028, leaving businesses under the current border arrangements for more than a year — later than the mid-2027 target set when former prime minister Keir Starmer announced his EU "reset" deal in May 2025. Firms that invested heavily in post-Brexit border infrastructure, such as the nursery supplier Provender, will not recoup those sums.
With a deal said to be "95 per cent there", Burnham predicted the negotiations could "go down to the wire". "We've got a big week ahead of us to try and get this deal over the line," he said after meeting European leaders in Dublin on Thursday, including European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen and Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni.
Two issues remain open: tuition fees for EU students and UK inclusion in the EU's "Made in Europe" scheme, which protects manufacturers from foreign competition. France and Germany have set conditions on extending the scheme to the UK car sector, including reciprocity and alignment with EU measures on third-country investment and trade defence.
The Conservatives oppose closer alignment. Party leader Kemi Badenoch has said it would "actually take us backwards", and Conservative MP Dame Priti Patel said Burnham's "obsession with the EU risks dragging Britain backwards, damaging our economy and leaving hardworking British taxpayers footing the bill." The Liberal Democrats described the draft deal as a "patch, not a fix" and called for rejoining the single market and customs union, while Reform UK said one of the "key benefits" of Brexit is that Britain no longer has to adhere to EU rules. The Green Party has called for the UK to rejoin the customs union, with leader Zack Polanski saying full membership "remains the best option".
Former prime minister Lord Cameron, who lost the 2016 referendum, told Bloomberg that Burnham should not seek to bring Britain back into the EU, arguing the UK's problems had "nothing to do with Brexit". Burnham responded that Cameron was wrong to say low growth over the last decade had nothing to do with Brexit, adding that the evidence said otherwise.
Burnham has previously said he is open to examining the "pros and cons" of options for the long-term relationship, including rejoining the single market, the customs union or the EU itself, but has ruled out major changes before the next general election. Labour's 2024 manifesto pledged "no return to the single market, the customs union, or freedom of movement". He is expected to make the EU reset a centrepiece of his speech at the lord mayor's banquet on Monday.
