Tony Blair has urged Labour to betray the Brexit vote and commit to rejoining the European Union within a decade.
The former prime minister said Andy Burnham should abandon Labour’s red lines and negotiate with Brussels to enter another ‘formal relationship’.
Sir Tony said the Prime Minister should make clear that ‘everything is on the table’ – including free movement – as there is ‘no point in inching towards Europe’.
In the foreword to a new report from his think tank, Sir Tony said: ‘We should be clear that we want back into a formal relationship with the EU.’
The former PM, who played a major role in the Remain campaign opposing Brexit, said: ‘The red lines which we drew in 2016 are not the same as 2026.
‘We need a new approach which makes sense of the world as it has changed in this decade, and which treats our future relationship in Europe not as a question about whether Britain ‘reverses’ Brexit but about whether we can secure a modern relationship with Europe.’
Sir Tony insisted it is ‘not about rerunning the debates of 2016 but taking a new approach rooted in the reality of 2026’ and that Britain should use rejoin negotiations as a ‘lever’ to reform the EU.
He added that it would be wrong to return to a straight membership of the single market and customs union – and Britain should only rejoin if the bloc reforms too.
Former prime minister Sir Tony Blair has said that Labour should commit to rejoining the European Union within a decade
Prime Minister Andy Burnham has declined to rule out putting a commitment to rejoin the EU in the next Labour manifesto
Sir Tony said: ‘It must be a Europe on a credible path to reform, a Europe of nation states, a Europe capable of being a genuine global power.
‘Otherwise, though Britain should continue to cooperate with the EU where it is in our mutual interest… Britain will show that it can and is prepared to remain independent.’
Shadow Cabinet Office minister Mike Wood said: ‘Andy Burnham has left the door open to rejoining the EU and now Tony Blair is piling the pressure on him to drag us back into the bloc.
‘Labour should stop trying to turn back the clock and instead focus on setting out serious proposals for the future.’
It marks a change in position from Sir Tony on Brexit after he warned earlier this year that the UK is ‘too weak’ to discuss rejoining the EU as Britain cannot negotiate until it regains its lost strength.
In a 5,600-word essay on the future of Labour and the country published in May, Sir Tony said that ‘reversing [Brexit] isn’t the answer to the country’s far worse situation in 2026’.
However the new Tony Blair Institute for Global Change (TBI) report calls on Mr Burnham to make a pledge to rejoin the EU a ‘cornerstone of the UK government’s upcoming ten-year plan’, which will be published later this year.
And the report, titled Beyond Leave and Remain: A Path to Rejoining a Reformed Europe, said Britain should be willing to ‘put freedom of movement on the table’.
In the meantime, it said London and Brussels should ‘start building things together now, before any question of membership is even on the table’, including on AI, cyber-resilience, defence and energy. It said the North Sea should be turned into a ‘shared energy hub’ and Europe’s nuclear power should be ‘rebuilt’.
The report said: ‘Britain should play a leading role in shaping a more powerful Europe. The necessary reforms have already been identified… but implementing them remains the challenge.
‘For Britain to be part of that effort, it must show political commitment to Europe. This can be achieved by setting a clear, public objective to rejoin the EU within a decade – subject to internal EU reform.
‘This objective should be a cornerstone of the UK government’s upcoming 10-year plan.’
Before he entered No10, Mr Burnham said he hoped to see the UK rejoin the EU within his lifetime.
And this week the Prime Minister declined to rule out putting a commitment to rejoining the EU in the next Labour manifesto, saying it was an issue ‘for another day’.
But he said he wanted to ‘go to the next level’ in terms of forging a new deal with the EU ‘that will further boost the British economy’.
‘Those issues are the substance of the summit alongside EU requests around youth mobility,’ he said.
