Prime Minister Andy Burnham has opened the door to Britain readopting the European Union's free movement rules, arguing that an "honest discussion" is needed about how immigration into the United Kingdom has changed since Brexit.
The comments came in a series of interviews with The Sunday Times during Burnham's first 100 days in office. Free movement, which let any EU citizen live and work in Britain, was one of the most fiercely debated issues of the 2016 referendum, and opposition to it was widely seen as a key reason voters chose to leave the bloc. A decade later, the prime minister is suggesting the debate is not closed.
"Freedom of movement had very significant challenges associated with it and I spoke about them in my previous time in parliament," Burnham said. "But at the same time, it was a type of immigration that perhaps wasn't as difficult [as now]. Revolving door migration where people would come and then go back is different. The balance of migration has changed, hasn't it, since then? I think we've just got to have an honest discussion about those things."
Burnham, who noted that his father Roy had taken advantage of EU rules in the 1990s to work in Germany, said Britain had also lost access to databases on border crossings since leaving the bloc. He stressed that staying out of free movement would not be a red line in talks about the future relationship with the EU — but he drew two firm limits of his own. "I can't see myself ever recommending anything that would involve joining the euro or Schengen," he said, ruling out both the single currency and the passport-free travel area.
The reaction was immediate. Reform UK leader Nigel Farage called the comments "a total betrayal of Brexit Britain", saying Burnham was deluded to claim immigration had been different under EU membership. Shadow home secretary Chris Philp said a return to free movement would mean "handing back control of our borders and allowing uncontrolled migration from across Europe", adding: "The British people voted to end free movement, and there can be no return to it."
The numbers behind the debate help explain why Burnham raised it. Annual net migration before the 2016 vote rose to about 330,000 people. After Britain left the EU in January 2020, it climbed to a record high of more than 900,000. EU citizens, who had once arrived in large numbers and often returned home, now make up a far smaller share of the flow, while permanent migration from outside Europe has grown.
Burnham's intervention lands in the middle of a wider, harsher argument about immigration in Britain. Earlier this month, at the conference of his Restore Britain party on 3 October, MP Rupert Lowe proposed ending all civilian immigration from developing countries, naming seven nations — Somalia, Pakistan, Eritrea, Albania, Afghanistan, Iran and Bangladesh — and saying a Restore Britain government would "discriminate" in choosing who could enter. His platform also includes deporting undocumented migrants, removing legal foreign nationals who fail stricter criteria, abolishing the existing refugee system and tightening the requirements for British citizenship.
The government, meanwhile, has been tightening the rules in its own way. The Home Office published a Statement of Changes to the Immigration Rules (HC 584) on 3 September, most of which took effect on 8 October, covering skilled workers, students and long residence. Further changes are scheduled in the coming weeks, including student maintenance requirements rising on 30 November and a shorter Graduate route for bachelor's and master's graduates from 1 January 2027.
Burnham used the interviews to present himself as a leader who has found his footing. "Three months in, I've got the measure of it now," he said. "I know the tram lines. I've got to be radical, but disciplined." Whether his free movement remarks become a policy proposal or remain a provocation for debate, they have reopened the most sensitive argument in British politics — and guaranteed that immigration will dominate the coming weeks.
*Reporting based on The Times, the Glasgow Times and InShorts.*