Tony Blair urges Labour to commit to rejoining the EU within a decade
Former PM tells Andy Burnham Britain should set a public objective of rejoining the EU within ten years, with everything on the table including freedom of movement; Shadow Cabinet Office minister accuses him of piling pressure on Burnham to "drag us back into the bloc".
Tony Blair has urged Labour to commit to rejoining the European Union within a decade, scrapping the Brexit red lines drawn in 2016.
In the foreword to a new report from his Tony Blair Institute for Global Change — Beyond Leave and Remain: A Path to Rejoining a Reformed Europe — the former prime minister said Britain should set a public objective of rejoining the EU within ten years as a cornerstone of the government’s upcoming 10-year plan. The report argues “everything is on the table”, including freedom of movement, and calls on London and Brussels to start building together now on AI, cyber-resilience, defence and energy — turning the North Sea into a “shared energy hub” and rebuilding Europe’s nuclear power.
Blair told Prime Minister Andy Burnham in an interview that the UK should work towards rejoining the bloc within ten years, saying: “We should be clear that we want back into a formal relationship with the EU,” and that “the red lines which we drew in 2016 are not the same as 2026.”
He insisted the push was “not about rerunning the debates of 2016”, and that Britain should use rejoin negotiations as a “lever” to reform the EU — warning it would be wrong to return to straight single market and customs union membership, and that Britain should only rejoin if the bloc reforms too.
The intervention marks a shift from Blair’s May essay, which said reversing Brexit “isn’t the answer to the country’s far worse situation in 2026” and warned the UK was “too weak” to discuss rejoining.
Shadow Cabinet Office minister Mike Wood accused Blair of “piling the pressure” on Burnham to “drag us back into the bloc”.
Sources
- The Guardian (via Google News): https://news.google.com/rss/articles/CBMinwFBVV95cUxON2tkVmFYcU83amx4Rm5xU1VXSVB
- The Independent (via Google News): https://news.google.com/rss/articles/CBMipwFBVV95cUxNRjN3WW5UUTQ5c1MzNEJMb0JkRFd
- London Evening Standard (via Google News): https://news.google.com/rss/articles/CBMinwFBVV95cUxQMEQ1X05wa091NWF1WEpYUVBobGI
- PapaLinc summary: https://papalinc.com/tony-blair-tells-labour-to-commit-to-rejoining-eu-within-a-decade-and-scrap-brexit-red-lines-not-re-run-debates-of-2016/
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