{"id":73289,"date":"2025-05-04T07:36:18","date_gmt":"2025-05-04T07:36:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/73289\/"},"modified":"2025-05-04T07:36:18","modified_gmt":"2025-05-04T07:36:18","slug":"labour-must-start-speaking-about-extent-of-brexit-damage","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/73289\/","title":{"rendered":"‘Labour must start speaking about extent of Brexit damage’"},"content":{"rendered":"

On a bruising, humbling evening for the Labour Party, it is Nigel Farage and Reform who came up smelling of roses. The right-leaning party have made a series of major gains across the country, winning a slew of council seats and several mayoral elections.<\/p>\n

ALSO READ: Andy Burnham proposes new, \u2018positive approach\u2019 towards benefits system<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n

Reform win big at Local Elections \u2013 eating into Labour votes<\/strong><\/p>\n

Of course, Reform also won the Runcorn by-election by just six votes following a recount. This has restored their number of sitting MPs to five, after Rupert Lowe was suspended by the Farage-led organisation earlier this year.<\/p>\n

That upheaval didn\u2019t seem to derail the party \u2013 which also appears to be hoovering up disenfranchised Labour voters. The collapse of the Conservative vote has certainly been a sight to behold, but Labour\u2019s losses have also been Reform\u2019s gain. It\u2019s something Andy Burnham is all too aware of.<\/p>\n

Andy Burnham says \u2018damage of Brexit\u2019 must be addressed by Labour<\/strong><\/p>\n

The Greater Manchester Mayor has had a busy week. He travelled to Parliament to unveil his plans to connect the \u201cNorthern Arc\u201d of Manchester, Sheffield, Leeds, and Liverpool through major new infrastructure investment, which he believes can generate around \u00a3100bn for the region.<\/p>\n

He was also quizzed by Channel 4<\/a> about the Local Elections, before the polling stations opened. When asked about Labour losing voters to Reform, Andy Burnham made it clear that the government needs to start talking about one thing in particular \u2013 Brexit.<\/p>\n

\u2018Brexit has damaged our prospects\u2019<\/strong><\/p>\n

Reform, formerly known as the Brexit Party, continue to win over the floating voters. But Burnham believes the best strategy for Labour is to tackle the damage of Brexit head-on \u2013 and pin the blame squarely on the likes of Nigel Farage and those who backed it.<\/p>\n

\u201cLet me say something about this situation. The biggest rupture in all of that [Nigel Farage and Reform gaining votes] \u2013 is Brexit. I think partly, what Labour now needs to do, is talk more about Brexit, and how it has damaged this country\u2019s prospects.\u201d <\/p>\n

\u201cLet\u2019s say over the last decade, it feels like things have become broken. Don\u2019t forget, I left Westminster because I was frustrated with politics as usual down there. I came out to say, look, something fundamentally different is needed.\u201d | Andy Burnham<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"On a bruising, humbling evening for the Labour Party, it is Nigel Farage and Reform who came up…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":73290,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5226],"tags":[8916,802,748,2000,299,5187,1699,4884,16,15],"class_list":{"0":"post-73289","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-brexit","8":"tag-andy-burnham","9":"tag-brexit","10":"tag-britain","11":"tag-eu","12":"tag-europe","13":"tag-european","14":"tag-european-union","15":"tag-great-britain","16":"tag-uk","17":"tag-united-kingdom"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/114448419047344038","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/73289","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=73289"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/73289\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/73290"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=73289"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=73289"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=73289"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}