Lord Khan calls for Labour to make reversing Brexit an election issue in 2029

Labour should start campaigning to rejoin the European Union, the Mayor of London has said.

Lord Sadiq Khan said his party should begin “making the case” for reversing Brexit, so it “can fight and win a general election with EU membership effectively on the ballot paper in 2029”.

At the Labour Party’s conference this week, Prime Minister Andy Burnham said leaving the EU had “done more harm than good”.

He promised to “lay out to the country” different options for the UK’s relationship with the 27-member bloc, in a bid to “find consensus around one”.

He did not rule out a proposal to go “all the way”, when he spoke to BBC Radio 4’s Today programme on Wednesday.

Mr Burnham’s position has been described as a “very big political mistake” by Reform UK leader Nigel Farage.

Writing in The Guardian newspaper, Lord Khan of Tooting said: “Ten years after the referendum, the sunlit uplands promised by the Brexiters have proven to be a total fiction.

“Instead, Britain finds itself battling an economic and geopolitical storm.”

The mayor, who last month took a seat on the House of Lords’ red benches, warned US President Donald Trump’s “fondness for unilateralism has shaken the foundations of the transatlantic alliance” while Russian leader Vladimir Putin “persists with his illegal and unconscionable full-scale invasion of Ukraine”.

Lord Khan described Europe as being “not just a safe harbour but a huge opportunity for growth”.

When Mr Burnham meets EU leaders at a summit due later this year, Lord Khan will “call on the Government to lay the groundwork for Britain’s swift return to both the customs union and the single market”, he said.

He continued: “In the long term, however, we must raise our ambitions higher still.

“Our party must immediately start making the case for rejoining the EU, so we can fight and win a general election with EU membership effectively on the ballot paper in 2029.

“The brutal truth is that leaving the EU was the biggest act of economic and geopolitical self-harm in our country’s history.

“Rejoining is the only viable path to long-term prosperity and security.”

The UK voted by 52% to 48% to leave the EU in 2016, and left the bloc in 2020.

Mr Burnham told reporters that he wanted to “look at the options” for the UK’s future relationship with the EU, including sticking with the current arrangement.

He said another option would be to join the customs union.

“We could look at what the Liberal Democrats said at their conference about the single market,” the Prime Minister added.

“Or we could go all the way.”

Mr Farage said the Prime Minister’s position would bolster his electoral prospects.

“I think what he’s done is open the door to Reform in the most extraordinary way,” the Reform leader said.

He also said: “To even consider rejoining the single market, the customs union, let alone the European Union itself, is the opposite of devolution – a massive transfer of huge powers up to an authority, whereby there’s nothing Parliament could do to change any of it.”

Kemi Badenoch, the Conservative Party leader, said Mr Burnham had put forward “vibes rather than seriousness”.

Ahead of her party’s conference in Birmingham this weekend, she told the Press Association: “We have good relationships with the EU.

“When people talk about closer co-operation, they’re not actually being specific.

“Does that mean giving them money? Does that mean allowing them to make our laws?”

Mrs Badenoch also told PA: “Many of the things going wrong in our country now are UK domestic policy, in the same way that some people believe leaving the EU would sort out all their problems.

“We have the same issue now with people thinking we rejoin the EU and it would solve all our problems – no, that’s not what’s going to happen.”