{"id":982161,"date":"2026-05-24T16:44:20","date_gmt":"2026-05-24T16:44:20","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/982161\/"},"modified":"2026-05-24T16:44:20","modified_gmt":"2026-05-24T16:44:20","slug":"trevor-phillips-torches-new-brexit-rows-in-labour","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/982161\/","title":{"rendered":"Trevor Phillips Torches New Brexit Rows In Labour"},"content":{"rendered":"

Trevor Phillips <\/a>has ripped apart the return of the Brexit<\/a> rows by describing it as \u201cperformance art\u201d.<\/p>\n

The Sky News <\/a>presenter opened his Sunday morning<\/a> show by laying bare the rivalries on both sides of the political spectrum right now as parties fight over the Makerfield by-election.<\/p>\n

The seismic contest could end up choosing the next prime minister.<\/p>\n

If Labour candidate and Greater Manchester mayor Andy Burnham<\/a> wins, he is expected to oust Keir Starmer.<\/a><\/p>\n

If he loses to Reform\u2019s Robert Kenyon, there are wider fears of an all-out civil war in Labour.<\/p>\n

The right-wing party\u2019s chances of winning the next general election will be bolstered, too.<\/p>\n

But as Phillips pointed out: \u201cThe sharpest political tensions aren\u2019t between left and right, but within each wing of politics.<\/p>\n

\u201cOn the left, a split is emerging between those who want the UK in effect back in the EU, and those who want to keep the red lines of no customs union, no common market, and no freedom of movement.<\/p>\n

\u201cMost of this is performance art since right now nobody in the EU wants us back.<\/p>\n

\u201cIn pretty much every European language, the word United Kingdom translate into a phrase meaning, \u2018massive pain in the backside\u2019,\u201d he said. \u201cAnd even if they did offer a deal it would cost us billions we don\u2019t have.\u201d<\/p>\n

Burnham\u2019s leadership rival ex-health secretary Wes Streeting <\/a>revived conversations about whether Britain should set up a new \u201cspecial relationship\u201d with the EU.<\/a><\/p>\n

This was seen as a blow to Burnham,<\/a> who is also in favour of closer ties with the trade bloc, because Makerfield voted Leave in the 2016 EU referendum.<\/p>\n

Phillips continued: \u201cOn the right, we have what you might call the deportation game. Reform and Restore, a splint group to its right, are competing for the number of people it can throw out the country.<\/p>\n

\u201cGiven [home secretary] Shabana Mahmood is now overseeing the largest drop in migration numbers for a decade or more, there\u2019s a slight feeling of two bald men wrestling over a comb.\u201d<\/p>\n

Reform wants to remove approximately 400,000 asylum seekers but Restore \u2013 led by former Reform MP Rupert Lowe \u2013 has proposed removing up to two million illegal migrants.<\/p>\n

Subscribe to Commons People<\/a>, the podcast that makes politics easy. Every week, Kevin Schofield and Kate Nicholson unpack the week\u2019s biggest stories to keep you informed. Join us for straightforward analysis of what\u2019s going on at Westminster.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Trevor Phillips has ripped apart the return of the Brexit rows by describing it as \u201cperformance art\u201d. The…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":982162,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[5226],"tags":[802,748,2000,299,5187,1699,4884,6657,29825,50630,16,15],"class_list":["post-982161","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-brexit","tag-brexit","tag-britain","tag-eu","tag-europe","tag-european","tag-european-union","tag-great-britain","tag-migration","tag-sky-news","tag-trevor-phillips","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/116630564217912157","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/982161","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=982161"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/982161\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/982162"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=982161"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=982161"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=982161"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}