Blair Urges Burnham to Make Rejoining Europe a Ten-Year Goal
Tony Blair and his institute have called on the Prime Minister to put rejoining a reformed European Union at the centre of the ten-year plan due in November, accepting free movement and a financial contribution as the price. The paper urges abandoning the red lines on the single market and a customs union. Mr Blair wants Britain to “signal an intention if the terms are right to enter into a structured formal relationship with Europe” and begin negotiations “where everything is on the table but nothing agreed until everything is agreed”.
The intervention lands where the politics is already moving: a senior European figure used this morning’s front pages to urge the Prime Minister to drop what was called an obsolete set of red lines,. Mr Burnham has not bitten, calling the question of a manifesto commitment one “for another day” — the answer of a leader who can read both the polling upside and the risk of handing Reform its best organising cause at exactly the moment the projections show it fragmenting. The former prime minister’s record here cuts both ways: authority on Europe, and a name that still mobilises opponents. Watch whether the ten-year plan mentions Europe at all.