Labour's Brexit conundrum
The Story
The Times
3.9 • 1.6K Ratings
🗓️ 18 May 2026
⏱️ 30 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Andy Burnham, a potential leadership challenger to Sir Keir Starmer as PM, has said that re-running Brexit arguments is "the last thing we should do right now" after Wes Streeting put the EU back on the agenda. Ahead of one of the most significant by-elections in recent political history, could the Brexit debate define the future of the Labour party, as well as the country at large?
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Guest:
- Max Kendix, political correspondent for The Times
- Joe Twyman, founder and director of Deltapoll
Host: Manveen Rana
Producers: Julia Webster and Harry Stott
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Read more: Keir Starmer latest: Wes Streeting’s EU stance ‘an attempt to derail Andy Burnham’
Further listening: Labour at war
Clips: BBC, Manchester Evening News, The Guardian
Photo: Shaun Parkinson and Getty Images.
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | From The Times and the Sunday Times, this is the story. |
| 0:06.0 | I'm Manvina. |
| 0:07.0 | Well, at 20 minutes to five, we can now say the decision taken in 1975 by this country to join the common market |
| 0:19.0 | has been reversed by this referendum to leave the EU. |
| 0:24.8 | Almost a decade on from that moment when the UK chose to leave the European Union, the battle lines |
| 0:32.5 | are being drawn in the Labour leadership contest and Brexit is firmly back on the agenda. |
| 0:39.3 | Leaving the European Union was a catastrophic mistake. |
| 0:46.5 | Wes Streeting set out his stall at the weekend, |
| 0:50.2 | matching the pro-Europe rhetoric his main rival, Andy Burnham, has become known for. |
| 0:56.1 | Long term, I'm going to be honest, I'm going to say it. I hope in my lifetime I see this country |
| 1:00.6 | rejoined the European Union. I'm absolutely clear about that. But was Wes Streeting trying to |
| 1:07.6 | appeal to the pro-EU wing of the party, or was he queering the pitch for |
| 1:12.7 | Andy Burnham, who now faces a make-or-break-by-election in Makerfield, which voted for Brexit |
| 1:19.2 | and where reform swept ahead in the local elections. Suddenly, the question of Europe is looming |
| 1:27.4 | large over the campaign in Greater Manchester. |
| 1:30.8 | My view is that Brexit has been damaging, but I also believe the last thing we should do right now |
| 1:38.2 | is rerun those arguments. I am not proposing that the UK considers rejoining the EU. I respect the decision |
| 1:45.8 | that was made at the referendum and it's going to undermine everything said. I've said about |
| 1:50.6 | strengthening democracy if we don't respect that vote. For some Labour MPs, the reopening of |
| 1:57.1 | this debate is just another reason to despair. We are just over a week after we took a real |
| 2:04.2 | beating in our working-class heartlands. We're talking about the Hartlepools, the Grimsby's, Barnsley, |
| 2:09.8 | places like Wiggin, where this by-election is going to be. And we were losing to a party, |
... |
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