{"id":1189866,"date":"2026-09-06T15:50:17","date_gmt":"2026-09-06T15:50:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/1189866\/"},"modified":"2026-09-06T15:50:17","modified_gmt":"2026-09-06T15:50:17","slug":"burnham-to-face-union-pressure-to-push-for-softer-brexit-in-eu-reset","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/1189866\/","title":{"rendered":"Burnham to face union pressure to push for softer Brexit in EU reset"},"content":{"rendered":"

Unions are set to call on Andy Burnham<\/a> to ditch Labour\u2019s Brexit<\/a> red lines and negotiate a deeper trade relationship with the EU to boost the economy and jobs<\/a>.<\/p>\n

The Trades Union Congress (TUC) is expected to debate a motion next week calling on the Prime Minister to negotiate the \u201cdeepest possible partnership with the EU, prioritising the needs of working people\u201d.<\/p>\n

The Prospect union motion says: \u201cThis partnership should be guided by the national interest, not by arbitrary red lines, and no options should be off the table.\u201d<\/p>\n

Union sources said the motion was very likely to be passed by unions at the conference with only the RMT rail union set to oppose it.<\/p>\n

While it could be softened during the debate at the TUC conference, unions are still expected to make clear they want Burnham to go further in deepening the economic relationship with the EU.<\/p>\n

The i Paper reported last month the Prime Minister is planning to stick to Sir Keir Starmer\u2019s Brexit red lines<\/a> \u2013 no rejoining the single market, customs union or freedom of movement \u2013 having dropped his call to rejoin the EU as he fought to return as an MP in the Makerfield by-election.<\/p>\n

Like Starmer, Burnham is planning to push for closer trade ties in a potential grand bargain which would see the UK agree to EU demands to lower university tuition fees<\/a> for European students.<\/p>\n

But the scale of the deal is limited by the red lines, which are fuelling ongoing calls within Labour and the wider movement to go further.<\/p>\n

EU Relations Minister Hamish Falconer will urge his European counterpart Maro\u0161 \u0160ef\u010dovi\u010d to include Britain in the bloc\u2019s protectionist \u201cbuy European\u201d policies<\/a>, an aim first revealed by The i Paper, in talks on Monday. <\/p>\n

Burnham last week partly blamed Brexit for a decade of low economic growth<\/a> after a \u201cseries of wrong turns\u201d in the last 40 years, but has yet to set out how his ambitions or plans would change from Starmer\u2019s.<\/p>\n

The unions\u2019 demands are expected to ramp up the pressure on Burnham ahead of the Labour Party conference where pro-EU elements of the party\u2019s grassroots are moving to also call on the PM to \u201crip up the red lines on Europe\u201d.<\/p>\n

Ahead of the debate at TUC Congress, Prospect General Secretary Mike Clancy said: \u201cKeir Starmer\u2019s \u2018red lines\u2019 placed unnecessary constraints on EU talks, which made a good deal for Britain harder to obtain. The new Prime Minister should chart his own course on Europe, reject the overtures from Team Trump to dump consumer, worker, and environmental protections, and explore all avenues to increase cooperation on trade, defence and other key issues including through closer integration with the single market.<\/p>\n

\u201cI expect unions to send a clear message to the government next week.\u201d<\/p>\n

A Government spokesman said: \u201cWe are building an ambitious, close relationship with the EU that will strengthen our economy and unlock good growth in every postcode.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Unions are set to call on Andy Burnham to ditch Labour\u2019s Brexit red lines and negotiate a deeper…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":1189867,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[5226],"tags":[8916,802,748,2000,299,5187,1699,4884,16,34004,15,12060],"class_list":["post-1189866","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-brexit","tag-andy-burnham","tag-brexit","tag-britain","tag-eu","tag-europe","tag-european","tag-european-union","tag-great-britain","tag-uk","tag-unions","tag-united-kingdom","tag-universities"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/117224894133786246","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1189866","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1189866"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1189866\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1189867"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1189866"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1189866"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1189866"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}