UK Prime Minister Andy Burnham has spent his first weeks in Downing Street firmly focused on home turf, unveiling distinctly domestic policies from eradicating rough sleeping to restricting vape and betting stores on England’s high streets.
He has said far less about his vision for the UK’s future relationship with the European Union – leaving officials in Brussels second-guessing his ambitions.
Burnham has previously spoken of leading a “proudly pro-European” government, and expressed hope that the UK would re-join the EU in his lifetime. But his path to power required winning a by-election in a fiercely pro-Brexit Manchester constituency, forcing him to temper his pro-EU rhetoric.
As Matthias Matthijs, a senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations, put it, “Burnham is personally the most pro-European prime minister since Blair but will likely talk about Europe less than (his predecessor) Keir Starmer did”.
But EU diplomats widely expect Burnham to continue with Starmer’s mission to put the UK back “at the heart of Europe” by mending the fraught trading, economic and political ties damaged by years of post-Brexit animosity.
