Rayner Backs Burnham’s Call for a Debate on EU Free Movement
Angela Rayner, the housing secretary, has defended the prime minister’s call for an honest discussion about free movement as “just pragmatism”, saying “you can’t take anything off the table when you’re having a conversation”. She said any change would be put to the public at a general election. Kemi Badenoch called it “another example of Burnham’s foot-in-mouth syndrome”.
Ms Rayner’s case was economic rather than ideological: “We haven’t got the best deal at the moment because we’ve seen exports reduced by 20 per cent.” She was careful to add that the prime minister “is not saying we’re going back to where we were in 2016”. The risk lies on Labour’s red-wall benches, where Jonathan Hinder, the MP for Pendle, recently pressed the prime minister to rule a return out. Nigel Farage called it a “total betrayal of Brexit Britain”. The prime minister meets EU leaders, including Ursula von der Leyen, in Brussels on 20 November.