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And (same author):
~ Friends Reunited? - by Simon Nixon - Wealth of Nations ~
nixons.substack.com/p/europe-reunit…
LittleGravitas, →EU immigrant, UK→ emigrant, anti-Brexit
@catanonim.me
13K followers 12K following 24K posts
UK-cit ES-res European, "dangerously continental". Federalist, inc UK → Schengen, €. en fr de ca es. #FBPE. M: @littlegravitas@c.im. lgrav24[a]privateum.net. ✔️ e2e 🚫 crypto! Signal. Kagi search. No non-friend DMs. I mostly follow back - and I block back.
![Burnham's comments, in an interview with the BBC at Labour's annual conference, opens the
door to the party including a pledge to rejoin the EU in its next election manifesto.
Among the other options are rejoining the EU customs union and single market, which was
ruled out by his predecessor, Keir Starmer.
In his BBC interview, Burnham - who has previously said he would like the UK to rejoin the
EU in his lifetime - said he wanted to be clear on "where we want Britain to go in the next
decade".
Asked whether he wanted the UK to rejoin the EU, he said he wanted to "look at the
options".
"We could stay as we are. That's definitely an option, if people think this is the right place to
stay," the PM told Radio 4's Today programme.
"We could look at what [former Tory chancellor] George Osborne has said about a customs
union, we could look at what the Liberal Democrats said at their conference about the single
market, or we could go all the way."
Burnham's comments are the clearest any prime minister has been about the UK possibly
rejoining the EU since the 2016 Brexit referendum.](https://cdn.bsky.app/img/feed_thumbnail/plain/did:plc:atcwlub3ufjdp3duoiheohqc/bafkreifb2mjray2az5wqboa6cppll4twyxkubwkakn42q2ub535wmsvxpy)
![At a fringe event, senior Labour backbencher Stella Creasy, chair of the
Labour Movement for Europe, called for the party to put a "clear
commitment" in its next general election manifesto for the government to
"negotiate what rejoining [the European Union] looks like."
"This country left the European Union not knowing what leaving would
mean," she said. "If we want to explore what rejoining the European Union
is, then we need the democratic consent to have the conversation about
what those issues would be."
She added that in order to be able to include the commitment in the
manifesto, the government must drop its red lines now."If we want to
have a serious conversation with our European counterparts about the
challenges we are all facing - the social division, the economic uncertainty,
the national security issues - everything must be on the table, and I mean
everything: the single market, the customs union, the movement of goods,
the people, of services."](https://cdn.bsky.app/img/feed_thumbnail/plain/did:plc:atcwlub3ufjdp3duoiheohqc/bafkreifwxvfdqzb5zbbqy22mfiurvhqip6foel5wejlekxbqx6xyshod6m)
![But something much deeper is at stake, which could properly be called a matter of national security. There is no doubt that what is happening domestically in the UK has parallels with what is happening in other countries, with the AfD's recent success in the Saxony-Anhalt election in Germany being an obvious example. And the way that this success was cheered in both the US and Russia (£) was the latest, and clearest, illustration of how the transformation of geo-politics matters not just for international relations but for domestic politics. It is now a matter of US state policy, enshrined in its 2025 National Security Strategy, to support the far right in Europe, and that includes the UK. Relatedly, Elon Musk openly supports Rupert Lowe and Tommy Robinson, calling civil war in Britain "inevitable" because of immigration, and there are multiple connections between MAGA and the British far right in both its street-level and intellectual guises.
This is the bigger context within which the increasingly ugly politics of the British far right should be understood [4]. It is, historically, a new experience for Britain to find itself no longer the great power it was until, say, 1945, and no longer shielded from its decline by being a kind of junior partner to the US during the Cold War and its immediate aftermath. Now, it is just another 'medium power' and, as a result of Brexit, one in self-chosen isolation from its regional moorings. As a result, it is ready prey. It is deeply ironic that those fulminating about the 'migrant invasion', and the need to 'secure our borders' are not just missing the real threats to national security but are aiding abetting them.](https://cdn.bsky.app/img/feed_thumbnail/plain/did:plc:atcwlub3ufjdp3duoiheohqc/bafkreihiwjyzmts366xrb24hjg2d7lesoyzyj2ignbzxxydrdnxpznoiem)
