One of Andy Burnham’s cabinet ministers has said she wants to avoid “circular arguments” about whether the UK should rejoin the EU, underlining divisions at the top of government over revisiting Brexit.
Lisa Nandy, the culture secretary, appeared to suggest she was not in favour of rejoining the trade bloc, but said the prime minister should still pursue closer ties to fulfil the promises made at the time of the referendum.
She is one of a handful of cabinet ministers who are concerned about Burnham’s plan for an “honest conversation” with the public about Brexit, and who are privately warning it could reopen a row that would only benefit Nigel Farage’s Reform UK.
“I do not believe that anybody wants to repeat circular arguments about in or out, leave or remain. I do think, though, that over the last decade we have let the British people down very badly,” she told the BBC’s Sunday with Kuenssberg programme.
Nandy, whose Wigan seat voted overwhelmingly Leave in 2016, and is one of the most cautious in the cabinet about reversing Brexit, was asked if she wanted to go back in. “I don’t know if that’s a choice we have,” she said.
However, she did concede that Burnham was trying to address the failings of the existing Brexit deal, telling Sky News it was important to “be honest” and highlight that “the deal that we got is not what we were promised”.
The culture secretary stressed there were “trade-offs and choices” to be made which involved a conversation with people across the country, indicating that Brexit would be a key theme of the next election campaign.
The prime minister will attend the European Political Community summit in Dublin on Thursday. Downing Street sources said he would use it to get Labour’s reset deal over the line, and to meet many European leaders for the first time.
In private, EU counterparts will be expecting Burnham to set out his ambitions for further integration after he announced his intention to move beyond Labour’s “red lines” on the bloc after the next election.
At a Brexit reset meeting on 20 November in Brussels, agreements on agriculture and food, emissions trading and youth experience visas are expected to be confirmed.
Burnham said at the weekend there was more to come. “This summit will show what we can achieve when we work together, but it doesn’t need to be the end of our ambition,” he told the Sunday Mirror.
Officials will also discuss the agenda for the next round of the reset, which could include another attempt for the UK to join the EU’s €150bn (£125bn) Safe defence fund, collaboration on law enforcement and borders and visas for touring artists.
Soon after the Brussels summit, Burnham is expected to give a speech setting out options for a closer relationship with the EU, arguing it would be in the UK’s long-term interest. No 10 sources said he wanted to “frame the conversation, not go straight to the endgame” before testing public opinion.
Senior government figures say Burnham wanted a mandate to start negotiations with the EU in Labour’s next election manifesto, but that any subsequent referendum would be solely confirmatory.
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“You can’t ask people to vote on an undefined plan like in 2016. That was David Cameron’s mistake,” one said.
However, Burnham has faced reservations from others within his cabinet. The business secretary, Jonathan Reynolds, and home secretary, Shabana Mahmood, are cautious about pushing to fully rejoin.
The EU’s former chief Brexit negotiator, Michel Barnier, said that London could not have the “single market à la carte” by cherrypicking which of the four freedoms – including freedom of movement – it would like in future negotiations.
“There is no cherrypicking. There will be no possibility to have one freedom and not the other,” he told the BBC.
Nandy was forced to reject allegations that celebrating the UK rejoining the Erasmus plus scheme by linking it to Remembrance Sunday was inappropriate, after suggesting it would help to honour “the immense courage of those who served our country” before Remembrance Sunday.
Kevin Hollinrake, the Tory chair, suggested she was using the national civic occasion to “try to make an EU membership pitch”. He added: “Our veterans did not fight for a student exchange scheme.”
Speaking on Sky News, Nandy responded: “They are the only party that is talking about Brexit and the EU. What we are announcing this weekend is that we’re going to widen the Erasmus scheme.
“I cannot see what is political about saying that we want young people from every part of this country to understand the contribution that their grandparents and great-grandparents made, not just to us, but to many, many lives of people that they had never met,” she added.
