The prime minister is correct to judge the time is right to push for closer links with the EU. The political risk is far outweighed by the potential rewards
The German philosopher GWF Hegel famously evoked the owl of Minerva when discussing the historical wisdom that comes through hindsight. This autumn, she has flown tirelessly over the landscape of British politics. Party conference season was dominated by conflicting Labour and Conservative accounts of the 1970s and 80s. And a decade after the United Kingdom voted to leave the European Union, Andy Burnham this week abandoned all equivocation over the damage – economic but also strategic – that resulted from that decision.
Having declared that it is time to “face up to the reality that Brexit has done more harm than good”, Mr Burnham told the House of Commons on Monday that it would be a “dereliction of duty” not to explore all options for closer relations with Brussels. Though he confirmed that in this parliament he will honour the red lines in Sir Keir Starmer’s Labour manifesto, all bets will subsequently be off.
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As he charges head first into the Brexit debate, Andy Burnham resembles no one so much as Donald Trump, says Prof James Alexander: cause a stir via wild assertions, the better to give cover to what you really want to do.
Russian meddling probably didn’t affect the referendum result – but the Kremlin’s motives for wanting to undermine the EU still matter
Russian territorial aggression against Ukraine didn’t feature much in the Brexit referendum campaign. It made headlines briefly when Boris Johnson blamed Moscow’s 2014 annexation of Crimea on the European Union.
According to the Vote Leave frontman, Vladimir Putin’s land grab was a consequence of Brussels making foreign policy “on the hoof” and having “pretensions to running a defence policy”.
Ken McCallum says Kremlin attempted to influence vote through social media and TV reports but had little impact
Russia did try to interfere in the Brexit referendum through social media and television reports, the head of MI5 said on Tuesday, but he added that did not mean the Kremlin had any impact on the result.
Ken McCallum endorsed comments by Andy Burnham, who raised the issue over the past two days, though he said continuing to debate it risked giving the Kremlin a needless propaganda victory.
Britain is expected to push for a new post-Brexit trade deal and increased information-sharing on immigration at a UK-EU summit in Brussels next month.
This comes as Andy Burnham, the country’s prime minister, says the post-Brexit “status quo is not good enough for Britain”, in a hint that he might seek to rejoin the European Union.
And, more than a decade after the Brexit vote, he also accused Russia of having meddled in the 2016 British referendum.
The UK leader will meet European Commission president Ursula von der Leyen and European Council president António Costa in Brussels on 20 November.
And Costa has also said that European and British security and prosperity are “closely intertwined”, while a closer relationship could “promote stability in Europe and beyond”.
Made in Europe and immigration
The November summit will be an opportunity to “raise concerns” about ‘Made in Europe,’ Burnham told members of UK MPs on Monday (12 October).
The ‘Made in Europe’ proposal in the Industrial Accelerator Act would require companies to source a certain number of parts from within the EU to be eligible for public money in strategic sectors.
But UK officials are worried the law could hurt British manufacturers, with Burnham expected to seek concessions.
But the British premier also wants to go further in renegotiating his country’s ties with the EU.
“On the table is a trade deal on food and drink products, a deal on emissions trading, progress towards linking our energy systems, a new youth experience scheme, and deeper cooperation on immigration,” he said.
Burnham aims to address an EU import ban on UK meat, seed potatoes, and shellfish and wants to reduce costs for shipping other goods to mainland Europe.
He also hopes for closer work between European and UK border forces on immigration.
“On immigration, we could link up our law enforcement efforts once again [since brexit], sharing more data and criminal records of foreign nationals,” Burnham said.
He may aim to rejoin the Schengen Information System, a database for border management and law enforcement cooperation in Europe.
And he could also pursue greater freedoms for UK citizens to live in the 27 member states.
“It would be a major dereliction of duty to turn away [from the EU]” the UK leader told parliament.
10 years on from Brexit vote
The last EU-UK summit, held in London in 2025, was already branded as a reset in relations across the English channel, with a new defence and security partnership, reciprocal access to fishing waters, and expansion of student exchanges.
And leaders are expected to build on the previous agreements by discussing defence, energy, and climate, as well as trade and migration, at their meeting next month.
But under the terms of the EU and UK’s legal divorce in 2020, the two sides remain bound by complex limitations.
And Burnham told MPs on Monday that renegotiating Britain’s relations with the EU could add over £10bn (€11.8bn) per year to the UK economy by 2040, “with the potential to add significantly more,” even if it did not rejoin.
Russian meddling?
Burnham also told a podcast on 11 October that Russia had meddled in the country’s Brexit vote 10 years ago.
Upon assuming office in July, Burnham asked officials if there had been Russian interference in the 2016 referendum, he told The Rest is Politics, and officials gave him a “clear answer that yes, there was.”
“We haven’t informed people [the general public] sufficiently,” he added, amid similar Russian electoral interference in France, Germany, and further afield in Europe.
For his part, British foreign secretary Stephen Doughty subsequently told the LBC broadcaster: “I don’t think [Russia] succeeded in their efforts to undermine our election”.
And Burnham also rowed back in the parliament debate on Monday when pressed by opposition MPs, by saying the outcome of the Brexit vote remained legitimate.
But he added that Russia’s meddling in the UK’s 2019 general election was a matter of record and that it was “inconceivable that this was the first time”.
Appetite for EU re-entry
Burnham also dropped hints on Monday that Britain could rejoin the European Union.
“One thing I think is true is that public opinion has moved more quickly than political opinion. I think the political class is behind the public on this issue,” he said.
“At every stage, the British public will be the boss,” he added, while promising a “pragmatic approach” to the hot-button issue, which has the potential to enflame right-wing anger in England.
“We need to draw a line on a decade of drift and division [from Europe],” he said.
But questions of a holding second referendum were “jumping ahead too far” according to Burnham.
The Westminster debate came after YouGov polling commissioned by Best for Britain, a pro-EU lobby group, indicated that pushing for closer EU ties would be politically advantageous for Burnham’s ruling Labour party.
The organisation also claimed Britain could reenter the union within five years.
Brexit was “not a sacred cow”, said Emily Thornberry, a fellow Labour MP, on Monday.
Sandro Gozi, an Italian liberal MEP and chair of the UK-EU parliamentary partnership assembly, also said in a statement: “As a former member, and with much of the regulatory framework already in place, I personally do not see any serious reason why an application from the UK would not be achievable.”
“When countries are already closely aligned to EU rules, such as was the case for Sweden and Finland, the process for accession is faster than for applicants essentially starting from scratch,” he said.
Zia Yusuf, Reform UK’s home affairs spokesperson, has said he does not agree with his colleague Suella Braverman’s assertion that black people cannot be English.
Asked about her views in an interview on Sky News, Yusuf said:
In my view Ashley Cole is the best English fullback in history, and I won’t take any other position. So in my view, Ashley Cole is English. I think the argument that he’s not English doesn’t hold water with me.
Nasser Hussain, who I grew up watching when I went to the cricket, the idea that those people aren’t English is an alien concept to me.
I would respectfully disagree with people, who make the opposite argument.
To say I’m English is to take a ‘laissez-faire, anything-goes’ attitude to ethnicity, citizenship and identity. It also denies me my Asian heritage. The liberals (many of them in today’s Conservative party) take this cosmopolitan approach to Englishness. They’re terrified of being called racist so they say that anyone, as long as they’re born here, can be English.
I take the conservative approach. Englishness is an ethnicity. There have been English people for centuries and we need to recognise this more if we are to start taking a more muscular approach to citizenship and nationality. And no, it’s not racist to say this.
Regno Unito e Unione europea si incontreranno il 20 novembre a Bruxelles per il secondo vertice bilaterale dalla Brexit. Lo ha annunciato ieri il primo ministro britannico Andy Burnham alla Camera dei Comuni, confermando la data già concordata con il presidente del Consiglio europeo António Costa. Parteciperà anche la presidente della Commissione europea Ursula von der Leyen.
L’obiettivo immediato è chiudere i negoziati su tre dossier: un accordo sanitario e fitosanitario per agevolare gli scambi di prodotti agroalimentari, il collegamento dei sistemi europei e britannici di scambio delle emissioni e un programma di mobilità per i giovani. Il vertice avrebbe dovuto svolgersi a luglio, ma era stato rinviato dopo le dimissioni del predecessore di Burnham, Sir Keir Starmer.
Il premier britannico vuole però utilizzare l’incontro anche per avviare una discussione più ampia sul futuro dei rapporti con Bruxelles. «Restare con lo status quo non è abbastanza» il Regno Unito, ha dichiarato ai deputati, definendo una rinuncia ingiustificabile non esplorare le possibilità di un accordo più ambizioso. Burnham ha indicato nella crescita economica, nel controllo dell’immigrazione e nella sicurezza le priorità del negoziato, sostenendo che gli accordi in preparazione potrebbero portare benefici economici equivalenti a circa dieci miliardi di sterline l’anno entro il 2040.
Il governo non ha escluso, nel lungo periodo, di valutare opzioni più profonde, compreso un eventuale ritorno al mercato unico o all’unione doganale. Burnham ha tuttavia precisato che la priorità resta raggiungere un risultato concreto al summit di novembre, prima di aprire un confronto sulle alternative per la relazione futura con l’Ue. Ha inoltre annunciato che Londra intende sollevare le proprie preoccupazioni sul programma europeo Made in Europe, che punta a rafforzare la produzione industriale del continente e potrebbe penalizzare le imprese britanniche.
Da Bruxelles, Costa ha definito essenziale rafforzare la cooperazione tra partner legati da interessi e valori comuni. Il presidente del Consiglio europeo ha indicato che i tre accordi in discussione potrebbero essere affiancati da ulteriori intese su difesa, sicurezza, migrazione e contrasto alla criminalità. Il quadro si inserisce nel partenariato strategico e nell’accordo sulla sicurezza e la difesa sottoscritti dalle due parti nel maggio 2025.
La prospettiva di un riavvicinamento ha però riaperto lo scontro politico interno. La leader tory Kemi Badenoch ha accusato Burnham di rimettere in discussione l’accordo sulla Brexit, sostenendo che Bruxelles non concederà condizioni migliori a Londra. Anche Reform UK ha criticato l’iniziativa, mentre i liberaldemocratici chiedono al governo di passare dalle dichiarazioni ai negoziati.
Il vertice del 20 novembre dovrà quindi misurare quanto spazio esista per migliorare concretamente i rapporti tra Londra e Bruxelles, a dieci anni dal referendum che sancì l’uscita britannica dall’Unione.
PM hails next month’s ‘reset’ summit as first step to closer ties, but tensions over trade may prove problematic
Andy Burnham has promised a “serious dialogue” over the UK’s future place in Europe, saying the existing relationship is “not good enough” as he framed next month’s Brussels summit as a possible first step to EU membership.
The prime minister said Britain must take a “clear-eyed rational look” at its long-term relationship with the bloc to boost economic growth and control immigration, which needed to go beyond Labour’s existing red lines.
Prime minister has reopened the debate over whether Russia sought to influence the 2016 referendum
Andy Burnham unexpectedly reopened an old Brexit debate when he said he had been told after becoming prime minister that Russia had interfered in the 2016 EU referendum.
It was a contentious issue in the second half of the previous decade, but one that had largely been forgotten about as the UK finally adjusted to the reality of leaving the EU. Now Burnham’s comments have given the topic a fresh impetus.
É "altamente provável" que a Guarda Revolucionária tenha dirigido a tentativa de ataque, diz Burnham, que anunciou que vai impor novas sanções. Burnham rejeita referendo de adesão à União Europeia
"Posso confirmar a nossa avaliação de que é altamente provável que [a tentativa de ataque] tenha sido coordenada no Irão, quase certamente dirigida pela Guarda Revolucionária Islâmica do Irão", afirmou.
Na véspera de uma cimeira com a União Europeia, o primeiro-ministro britânico rompe com a posição do antecessor Starmer e apela aos deputados para que façam uma avaliação "calma e realista" do Brexit.
Andy Burnham will say that failing to pursue a closer relationship with the EU would be a "dereliction of duty" in a major Commons address today, following his comments blaming Russia for interfering in the Brexit vote.
The prime minister has said Russia interfered in the 2016 Brexit vote in an interview with The Rest Is Politics podcast as he warned voters in France and Germany about Moscow-backed efforts to influence their politics.
Burnham is the first British prime minister to say openly there is evidence of Russian interference in the referendum a decade ago, and said last month that Britain could consider rejoining the European Union in the future
Zia Yusuf, Reform UK’s home affairs spokesperson, is speaking now. He started his speech with an account of a 73-year-old woman dying in North Wales after having to wait 23 hours for an ambulance, and he sought to link this to immigration.
He said:
The Royal College of Emergency Medicine estimates that 15,000 people across Britain died last year due to excess wait times for emergency treatment. That’s 300 people a week, 300 lives destroyed, 300 families devastated.
And that number has increased tenfold over the last decade. This is a moral outrage, and it is a direct result of decisions made by Tory and Labour governments.
I don’t think that’s because he wants to have a fight over the European Union. I think that’s because he knows what we’re talking about today impacts hard in what is known as the red wall.
Prime Minister Andy Burnham has acknowledged that Russia interfered in Britain’s 2016 referendum on European Union membership, ending a decade in which successive governments avoided making a definitive public assessment of Moscow’s involvement.
British Prime Minister Andy Burnham has confirmed that Russia interfered in the 2016 Brexit referendum, marking a significant change in the government’s position on foreign involvement in one of the country’s most consequential political decisions. The acknowledgement comes more than ten years after Britain voted to leave the European Union and six years after a parliamentary intelligence investigation criticised the failure to examine Russian activities surrounding the vote.
Speaking on The Rest Is Politics podcast, Burnham said he had requested an assessment of Russian interference after becoming prime minister in July. He subsequently received confirmation that Moscow had attempted to influence the referendum, although he declined to disclose the intelligence underpinning that conclusion or explain the methods employed.
The statement establishes an important distinction between Russian interference and the referendum’s outcome. The former is now publicly acknowledged by the British government; the latter remains a separate question. No evidence has been presented demonstrating that Russian activities determined the result, which saw 51.9 per cent vote to leave the EU.
The committee examined Russian activities targeting British political institutions, including attempts to exploit social divisions through state-controlled information channels and online networks. It found that the British government had failed to conduct a comprehensive assessment of potential Russian interference in the Brexit referendum.
That failure was particularly striking when compared with the United States, where intelligence agencies investigated Russian interference in the 2016 presidential election and published conclusions identifying a coordinated campaign.
In Britain, by contrast, responsibility for examining foreign interference had been divided between departments and intelligence agencies. The parliamentary committee found that no organisation had assumed responsibility for assessing the threat to the referendum comprehensively.
The distinction was politically convenient for successive governments. Without a formal investigation, ministers could maintain that there was insufficient evidence to establish interference while avoiding the question of whether the evidence had ever been properly examined.
Burnham’s acknowledgement changes that position, although it does not resolve every question raised by the original inquiry.
What Russia sought to achieve
Russian information operations have repeatedly targeted political divisions within European societies, particularly disagreements over immigration, national sovereignty, NATO and relations with Brussels.
Research into online activity surrounding the Brexit campaign identified networks of accounts associated with Russian influence operations that circulated divisive political messages. Establishing their precise reach, coordination and effect on individual voters remains considerably more difficult.
Moscow had an identifiable strategic interest in weakening European political cohesion. Britain’s departure from the EU removed one of the bloc’s largest economies, a permanent member of the UN Security Council and an important supporter of sanctions against Russia.
That geopolitical consequence does not establish that Brexit was engineered by Moscow. Britain’s referendum reflected longstanding domestic political divisions, disagreements over European integration and dissatisfaction with successive governments.
Russian interference, however, need not create political divisions to exploit them. Amplifying existing disputes, discrediting institutions and encouraging distrust between political opponents can serve strategic objectives without requiring direct control over a campaign.
Consequences for relations with Europe
The timing of Burnham’s intervention is significant. His government has begun reconsidering Britain’s relationship with the EU, while European governments are confronting increasingly aggressive Russian hybrid operations.
Burnham has also suggested that Britain should be prepared to reconsider EU membership in the future, although such a decision would require a separate political mandate and negotiations with the bloc’s 27 members.
The prime minister’s comments place Russian interference within a broader European security debate. France and Germany are among the countries confronting allegations of foreign information operations, covert political influence and attempts to undermine electoral confidence.
The European Council’s forthcoming October summit will include discussions of Russian-linked hybrid attacks, demonstrating that the problem extends beyond conventional espionage and cyber-security.
For Britain, the outstanding question concerns the intelligence assessment itself. Burnham has not indicated whether further evidence will be published, whether Parliament will receive a classified briefing or whether the government intends to examine failures by previous administrations.
A public acknowledgement without supporting details may establish the government’s position, but it cannot by itself provide a complete historical account.
Ten years after the referendum, Britain is therefore confronting two separate matters: the extent of Russia’s activities during the campaign and the reasons its own institutions took so long to acknowledge them.
The first concerns foreign interference. The second concerns the accountability of the British state.
La Russia ha interferito nel referendum sulla Brexit del 2016. La notizia non è poi così sorprendente: voci di questo tipo circolano già dal 2020. Ma stavolta le parole sono del premier britannico Andy Burnham, che ha raccontato di aver chiesto chiarimenti sull’eventuale coinvolgimento di Mosca quando è entrato a Downing Street, ricevendo una risposta affermativa. «Ho posto la domanda quando sono arrivato a Downing Street: c’è stata un’ingerenza russa nel referendum del 2016? Ho avuto una risposta chiara: sì, c’è stata», ha detto in un’intervista al podcast “The Rest Is Politics”.
L’intervento di Burnham segna una discontinuità rispetto alla posizione dei precedenti governi conservatori, che sostenevano non ci fossero prove di un’interferenza russa riuscita nel voto che portò il Regno Unito fuori dall’Unione europea. Burnham, tuttavia, non ha precisato chi gli abbia fornito la valutazione, su quali prove si basi né se le attività russe abbiano effettivamente influenzato il risultato del referendum.
Già nel 2020, una commissione parlamentare britannica che si occupa dell’intelligence aveva criticato il governo e i servizi segreti per non aver indagato adeguatamente sui tentativi di interferenza di Mosca. Secondo il rapporto, non era stata richiesta una valutazione completa delle attività russe, nonostante gli indizi relativi all’uso di media controllati dallo Stato e account sui social network per influenzare la politica britannica. A differenza di quanto avvenuto negli Stati Uniti dopo le presidenziali del 2016, non era stata condotta neppure un’analisi complessiva successiva al referendum.
Per Burnham, rendere pubbliche queste informazioni è oggi particolarmente importante per aiutare le altre democrazie europee a riconoscere le operazioni di influenza straniere. «Credo che sia importante mettere chiaramente a verbale queste cose, anche per aiutare gli elettori in Germania e in Francia a capire che una parte di questa politica è fomentata dai nostri nemici, vale a dire la Russia», ha spiegato. «Siamo stati troppo sulla difensiva e non abbiamo informato abbastanza le persone sulla misura in cui dall’estero si cerca di destabilizzare il processo politico».
Il premier ha affrontato il tema durante la visita a Berlino della scorsa settimana, parlando con il cancelliere tedesco Friedrich Merz della minaccia rappresentata da Alternative für Deutschland (AfD), il partito di estrema destra. Secondo Burnham, Merz ha espresso preoccupazione per i legami tra la formazione e Mosca: «L’AfD è chiaramente legata alla Russia, finanziata, credo». Ha aggiunto che «dalla Russia arriva sicuramente disinformazione e informazione falsa diretta alla politica tedesca».
Londra sta intanto sviluppando un nuovo Centro nazionale per la difesa dell’informazione, incaricato di individuare e contrastare le campagne straniere che mirano a indebolire la democrazia britannica. Il governo ha inoltre annunciato una collaborazione con Berlino contro le minacce ibride.
Le dichiarazioni di Burnham arrivano mentre il premier ha riaperto anche il dibattito sul futuro rapporto con Bruxelles, lasciando aperta la possibilità di un ritorno del Regno Unito nell’Unione europea. La questione russa e quella europea si intrecciano così nella sua strategia: dieci anni dopo il referendum, Londra vuole fare i conti con le possibili interferenze che hanno accompagnato la Brexit e, allo stesso tempo, rivalutare il rapporto politico con il continente.
Nearly half of voters in the United Kingdom support rejoining the European Union, according to a survey released as Prime Minister Andy Burnham reviews the country’s options for its long-term relationship with the bloc.
The Messina Group polled 11,461 people between 12 and 24 September. It found that 49 per cent supported EU membership and 28.5 per cent opposed it. The findings were weighted by respondents’ votes in the 2016 referendum, according to the survey results.
Several other options for closer cooperation also received more support than opposition. Retaining the current relationship while removing as many trade barriers as possible was backed by 48.2 per cent, with 20.9 per cent against. A customs union was supported by 47.1 per cent and opposed by 20.7 per cent.
Joining the single market was supported by 45.1 per cent, while 45.5 per cent backed associate membership. The existing relationship without further changes received 42 per cent support. Moving further away from the EU was the least popular option tested: 27.9 per cent supported it and 41.2 per cent opposed it.
The figures show support for a range of possible arrangements, but do not establish agreement on what Britain should seek or on the terms it should accept.
On timing, 25.9 per cent said the UK should rejoin immediately, 22.9 per cent favoured doing so within three years and 8.4 per cent within the next decade. A further 23 per cent said they did not want closer relations with the EU.
Respondents were also asked whether leaving the bloc had been the right decision. Some 52.4 per cent said it was wrong, compared with 29.7 per cent who said it was right; 17.9 per cent were undecided. Asked whether Brexit had been a success or failure, 54.9 per cent called it a failure and 12.2 per cent a success. Nearly a quarter, 23.2 per cent, said neither, while 9.7 per cent did not know.
The poll tested the possible electoral effects of different Labour positions on Europe. It found that scenarios involving closer ties could increase the party’s vote share by between 4.3 and 7.4 percentage points. The largest potential rise was linked to a proposal for a referendum in which Burnham campaigned for Britain to rejoin.
Burnham has said Labour will review the choices available, including keeping current arrangements, joining a customs union, returning to the single market or seeking EU membership. He plans to set out the options around the next UK-EU summit, expected in November. In recent remarks, he said the government would assess “what is doable” and the “pros and cons” of each option.
The review marks a shift from Labour’s 2024 election manifesto, which ruled out rejoining the EU, single market or customs union. Burnham has not proposed an immediate application or referendum. A UK bid for membership would require negotiations with the EU and unanimous agreement from member states.
The question of whether a referendum should come first also remains open. Almost a third of respondents said a vote would be needed before rejoining. More than one in six thought a general-election mandate would be sufficient, with a similar proportion saying Parliament could make the decision.
French President Emmanuel Macron and Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez have said the EU would welcome a British return. Their comments followed Burnham’s call for a review of Britain’s options, as EU Today reported this week. Earlier EU Today coverage also examined British and EU public support for a possible return.
France and Spain have openly welcomed the prospect of Britain rejoining the European Union after British Prime Minister Andy Burnham put full membership back among the options for the country’s long-term relationship with Europe.
French President Emmanuel Macron and Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez addressed the question during Macron’s state visit to Spain on Wednesday, 30 September. Asked whether Britain could return under Burnham, Macron responded in English: “Welcome back.” He added that a British decision to move in that direction would be good news for both Britain and Europe.
Sánchez was similarly positive, saying Spain would “open our arms” if Britain sought to return.
Their comments followed Burnham’s intervention at the Labour Party conference and subsequent interviews in which he argued that Britain should reconsider the full range of options for its future relationship with the EU.
Those could include remaining under the present post-Brexit arrangements, returning to the customs union or single market, or ultimately “going all the way” and applying for EU membership again.
More recently, the argument has moved from diplomatic language to practical economic questions. Burnham has been pressing Brussels to ensure British companies are not disadvantaged by the EU’s emerging industrial preference rules, with access to the proposed “Made in Europe” framework becoming one of the principal issues ahead of the next EU-UK summit.
Macron nevertheless made clear in Madrid that closer relations could not become a system under which Britain selected individual advantages of EU membership while remaining outside the corresponding obligations.
That question dominated much of the Brexit negotiation after the 2016 referendum. Access to the single market is built around the free movement of goods, services, capital and people, while participation also entails accepting common rules and enforcement mechanisms.
A British application to rejoin would be a separate and considerably larger process. Under Article 49 of the Treaty on European Union, Britain would have to apply for membership and secure unanimous agreement from the existing member states before negotiations could be completed.
A returning Britain could not assume that the special arrangements it held before Brexit would automatically be restored. The UK previously had an opt-out from the euro, remained outside the Schengen passport-free area and benefited from a budget rebate.
Any future terms would have to be negotiated.
Public opinion has also changed since the referendum. A YouGov poll in June found 55 per cent of Britons supported rejoining the EU and 34 per cent opposed it, although support falls when respondents are asked about specific membership conditions.
For the moment, however, Burnham is not proposing an immediate membership application or referendum.
The next test will be the UK-EU summit expected in November. The meeting was originally planned for July but was postponed following Keir Starmer’s resignation, with EU Today reporting at the time that the political transition in London had complicated preparations.
Burnham wants the summit to advance negotiations on industry, trade and migration and has said he intends to use the period around the meeting to set out the longer-term options available to Britain.
The immediate negotiations are therefore likely to focus on economic integration rather than membership.
Greater access to European markets would almost certainly involve greater regulatory alignment. The political argument in Britain will concern how far the country is prepared to accept common European rules in return for reducing barriers created by Brexit.
Macron and Sánchez have now made clear that, if the discussion eventually moves beyond closer economic cooperation towards membership itself, two of the EU’s largest states would welcome it.
The UK’s trade ambitions are clear: open new markets, reduce border friction, and make it genuinely easier for small businesses to compete globally. The government’s 2025 Trade Strategy frames this as a growth priority. Yet the data tells a more sobering story, write Jose Puyana and Tom Harding.
UK goods exports to the EU have fallen by £27 billion since Brexit. Exports remain roughly 18% below pre-2019 levels. And around one in seven UK businesses have stopped trading with the EU altogether.
Large-scale surveys from the Federation of Small Businesses and British Chambers of Commerce consistently cite customs processes and compliance complexity as the leading barriers for SMEs. But surveys don’t fully capture the emotional texture of what traders describe: a persistent, low-level anxiety about whether a detail has been missed, whether the code is right, whether the rules have quietly changed since last time.
The traders understand their products, their customers, and their commercial realities. What leaves them uneasy is the web of rules, requirements, and systems governing the movement of goods across a border. We call this mindset the Nervous Trader.
The fear of getting it wrong
Consider a small business importing animal-derived products: the origin of materials, their treatment, and finishing processes can all shift how a shipment must be declared. A detail that seems minor to an outsider - whether a skin has been treated, how a component has been finished - can change the commodity code entirely. Get it wrong, and products are delayed or blocked at the border. Unexpected duties land, turning a profitable shipment into a loss. Time is consumed by questions from freight forwarders and internal scrutiny that the business cannot afford.
For a clothing importer shipping technical apparel from multiple countries, the same anxiety plays out at scale. Every declaration carries the nagging worry of a missed detail or overlooked cost. And for a manufacturer exporting specialist components, the risk doesn’t just lie with a single shipment - it scales with volume. As the business grows, so does the exposure. One overlooked requirement can have knock-on effects across the whole operation.
Rules without a map
What these businesses share is not inexperience. It is the absence of certainty. Trade is inherently consequential - financial and reputational stakes are real. But the systems around it do remarkably little to reduce the sense of exposure. Nervousness is rational in an ambiguous environment. The question is why we continue to design ambiguity into the experience.
International trade is inherently complex. Nobody who works in it would claim otherwise. The rules are numerous, the requirements specific, and the consequences of error real. Traders understand this. None of the businesses we spoke to expected the process to be simple.
What they experience, however, is complexity without context - rules and requirements presented without enough orientation to be useful. Government guidance is often comprehensive and technically accurate. The information assumes a level of prior knowledge that most small business operators simply don’t have time to develop.
More critically, guidance is almost always written around policy rather than around the person trying to follow it. That gap between what guidance says and what a trader actually needs to know in a given moment is where confidence breaks down.
When traders are nervous and the guidance around them fails to build confidence, they find other ways to manage the risk. They defer. They delegate. They pay someone else to carry the uncertainty; they were never given the tools to handle themselves.
It is a rational response to an inadequate system. The more revealing data point, though, is the informal workarounds. Traders describe turning to AI tools, online forums, and third-party platforms to fill the gap that official guidance leaves. Not because those sources are more authoritative, but because they are faster, more conversational, and more willing to engage with the specific question being asked rather than the general rule that may or may not apply.
Designing for confidence, not just compliance
If our digital services don’t actively build confidence and help manage the risks associated with trade compliance, other ecosystems will fill that gap. Intermediaries become the only translators of complexity, while traders never fully learn the language.
Trade is never static. For UK businesses, the pace of change over the past decade has been relentless: Brexit reshaping EU relationships, US tariff policy shifting unpredictably, new regulatory requirements emerging as new markets are entered. The environment that small traders are navigating today bears little resemblance to the one they trained themselves on five years ago.
The consequences are visible. Businesses that built strong European revenue streams have watched them erode as post-Brexit duties and friction increased. What had been a reliable, profitable channel became uncertain, then marginal, then unviable. The challenge wasn’t that traders didn’t see change coming - most did. The challenge was that the systems around them provided no clear guidance on what to do about it.
When those questions arise constantly, in a domain that already feels high-risk and poorly signposted, the fear of making mistakes doesn’t simply persist; it compounds. And that compounding weight is what drives traders towards avoidance - towards stepping back from unfamiliar routes, delaying entry into new markets, and, at worst, withdrawing from international trade altogether.
Change is inevitable in trade. But adaptation should not require heroic effort on the part of the trader. When our systems don’t communicate change in accessible, context-relevant ways, they transform something manageable into something exhausting.
Addressing this requires more than incremental improvements to individual services. It requires a different frame. In practical terms, it means translating policy into language that traders can act on. It means providing reassurance at the moments it is most needed, not just information. It means improving relevance - helping traders quickly understand what applies to their situation rather than leaving them to extract that signal from comprehensive but impersonal guidance. And it means fragmented government services beginning to work more deliberately across boundaries, acknowledging their shared users, shared challenges, and shared outcomes.
Confidence should be treated as a primary, measurable outcome of good service design in trade. Not a soft aspiration, but a design specification. If a service leaves traders more uncertain than when they arrived, something has gone wrong - regardless of whether the information was technically accurate.
The role of digital and service design is not to eliminate the complexity of international trade. It is to prevent that complexity from being amplified by the experiences built around it. Trade will always carry risk. The question is whether we design services that help traders manage that risk clearly, or services that make them feel exposed to it at every turn.
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