Cabinet ministers rally behind Burnham

Andy Burnham's call for the UK to consider a return to free movement with Europe has drawn support from senior cabinet ministers, opening a visible divide inside Labour over the party's EU policy. Angela Rayner, the housing secretary, backed his remarks and told Sky News the idea was "just pragmatism".

Rayner added that, in her view, "you can't take anything off the table when you're having a conversation", saying the prime minister is clear nothing can be excluded in advance.

The ministers sympathetic to Burnham's argument favour a closer UK-EU relationship to boost growth, potentially involving a return to the single market and accepting free movement as a result. Those in favour of reopening the discussion include Ed Miliband, the foreign secretary.

Stella Creasy, chair of the Labour Movement for Europe, said the country is "long overdue for a grownup conversation about what EU freedom of movement actually means".

Burnham: a different kind of migration

Burnham argued that while free movement carried real difficulties, it may be a less problematic form of immigration than the one the UK has now. He acknowledged that "freedom of movement had very significant challenges associated with it", but called for an honest discussion about the alternatives.

His distinction rests on how migration worked when Britain was an EU member. "Revolving-door migration where people would come and then go back is different", he said, describing the pre-Brexit pattern as unlike today's migration balance. The backdrop to his argument is the sharp rise in net migration, which reached a peak of about 900,000 in January 2020, up from 330,000 before the Brexit vote.

Caution from Mahmood and red wall MPs

Within Labour, the most prominent sceptic is home secretary Shabana Mahmood, who told a New Statesman event at the party conference that rejoining the EU would not be a "simple, straightforward thing" and would involve hard trade-offs.

Beyond the cabinet, MPs whose seats voted heavily for Brexit are equally reluctant to reopen the argument:

• •A number of Labour MPs with heavily pro-Brexit seats in the so-called red wall in the north and Midlands are wary of reviving the free movement debate.
• •Jonathan Hinder, the MP for Pendle, recently pressed the prime minister in parliament to rule out a return to free movement.

Opposition attacks and polling backdrop

The idea has drawn sharp responses from rival party leaders, along with a warning from within Labour's own ranks:

• •Richard Walker, the Labour peer and executive chair of Iceland, told Times Radio that restarting the debate would be a "dangerous precedent", and said opening the borders would not help the "one million young people that are out of work".
• •Conservative leader Kemi Badenoch called the idea "another example of Burnham's foot-in-mouth syndrome", posting that most Brexit voters did not want free movement and that "The answer is to learn from those mistakes, not reopen free movement."
• •Reform UK leader Nigel Farage called Burnham's position a "total betrayal of Brexit Britain and his Makerfield pitch", adding, "He is also deluded to say immigration was different when we were members of the EU."

Against that hostility, polling suggests voters in the UK are increasingly open to rejoining the EU or a single market arrangement involving free movement - the public mood shift underpinning Burnham's case.

The debate remains open inside Labour, with red wall MPs representing pro-Brexit seats in the north and Midlands still wary of reopening the free movement argument.