David Cameron has rejected Prime Minister Andy Burnham’s move to put rejoining the European Union on the table, saying Britain’s economic problems are about overspending, tax and welfare, not Brexit. His views, however, were not expressed from a Eurosceptic perspective but rather that Burnham would be “in danger of getting a less good partnership deal” if European nations think Britain wants to rejoin.
The former prime minister, who led the unsuccessful Remain campaign, told Bloomberg’s Mishal Husain: “If you look at the economic problems we have today, I don’t really think they’ve got anything to do with Brexit at all.” “Our economic problems are: we are overspending, over-borrowing, over-taxing, over-regulated, and far too much being spent on working age welfare,” he said. “Those are a set of problems that have nothing to do with Brexit.”
Cameron, the Conservative Party leader who called the 2016 referendum and resigned after Remain lost, said he was “desperately disappointed” when Britain voted to leave the EU 10 years ago, but that seeking to reverse the decision a decade later was the wrong approach.
“I’m a democrat, a believer in democracy,” he said. “We voted to leave.”
“Instead of launching an argument about rejoining — which I think would be a very long and painful argument and who knows where it would end up — instead of that, focus on how do we be the best friend, best neighbor, best partner,” Cameron said in an interview on The Mishal Husain Show, due to be published in full on Friday.
Bloomberg reported that, in a speech at the Labour Party’s annual conference in September, Burnham said “Brexit has done more harm than good,” and subsequently added that all options, including rejoining, were on the table. Burnham reaffirmed his desire for closer ties with Europe during his weekly question session in the House of Commons on Wednesday, saying he was focused first on a deal that could add 0.4% to GDP. “Any growth on that scale is worth taking,” he said, adding, “we will take it and we will seek that deal.”
Cameron, who later served as foreign secretary under Rishi Sunak from 2023 to 2024 and holds a seat in the House of Lords, warned that “flirting with rejoining” could have the opposite effect. “You’re in danger of getting a less good partnership deal because of course the EU countries will just think: ‘Well, these guys are going to rejoin anyway, so what’s the point in giving them a good partnership deal,'” he said.
He also pushed back against options that stop short of rejoining, disagreeing with his former chancellor, George Osborne, who has advocated rejoining the customs union. That would require the UK to scrap all other trade deals it has negotiated since Brexit, Cameron said.
The former prime minister’s remarks come after Business Secretary Jonathan Reynolds, the day before Burnham’s conference intervention, had warned against the uncertainty that reopening the debate on Europe could create. Reynolds’s cabinet colleague Lisa Nandy also indicated caution. “I do not believe that anybody wants to repeat circular arguments about ‘in or out?’ ‘leave or remain?'” Nandy told the BBC on Sunday. She added, however, that “I really don’t think you can put a piece of paper between me and Andy Burnham, who is a good friend of mine, on this.”
