13 Oct 2026, 02:20 PM

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Former Labour leader says he believes the prime minister has an ‘authentic commitment’ to taking the UK back into the EUAndy Burnham promises ‘serious dialogue’ over UK’s relationship with EUJohn Healey should “stay the course” and continue repairing the UK’s public finances, the International Monetary Fund’s top economist has said, after the fund lifted its growth forecast for Britain, Heather Stewart reports.Good morning. In his long statement to MPs yesterday, Andy Burnham was evasive when asked whether he wanted his planned renegotiation of Britain’s relationship with the EU to result in a Labour-led government, after the next election, rejoining. In response to one question about this, Burnham told a Tory MP he was “getting way ahead of himself” with the question. But one well-placed observer is not being so coy.Yes, sure, sure, sure. His commitment is authentic. He really does understand from the grassroots up why restoring what I think of as normality in our continent is vital for every party economically, politically, culturally, all in security terms, and is able to articulate it in language that people can understand. So yeah, he is definitely.Andy’s not changed direction. He’s always been a committed pro-European. In the byelection, he rightly didn’t make a noise about it. That’s tomorrow’s debate. Simply because the byelection wasn’t about Europe. It was about winning Makerfield in order to enable him to become leader of the party. That’s all it was about.It’s common sense. It’s not left and right. Andy’s view of the engagement of the state is about what Winston Churchill did in the 1950s, and I don’t remember Churchill being thought of as on the left. Andy’s a socialist, but he’s a very common-sense socialist. He’s very rational. He’s cool, not just with his dark blue T-shirt, but in his thinking, and he’s advanced a hell of a lot in the last 10–12 years in terms of his understanding of the absolute importance of utility, of usefulness in politics.That’s what puts us, basically, he and I, on the same spot. Of course he’s on the left. I’m on the left. We’re socialists, but we are prompted by the usefulness of the application of ideas. Continue reading...

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