ANDY BURNHAM CALLS FOR UK-EU FREE MOVEMENT DISCUSSION

Prime Minister Andy Burnham has called for an “honest discussion” about freedom of movement between the UK and the European Union. Burnham suggested Britain could readopt the EU rules as part of his pledged review of the UK’s relationship with the bloc. He said migration patterns had changed since Brexit, with more foreign nationals now settling permanently in the UK. Burnham called for an “evidence based discussion” of the issue.

Burnham said EU citizens who moved to Britain before Brexit were often younger people who stayed for a few years before returning home. He said the ease of moving between countries had also benefited British citizens. Burnham cited his father, Roy, who moved to Germany for work in the 1990s. He acknowledged that freedom of movement had brought “very significant challenges”, which he said he had discussed during his previous time in Parliament.

EU freedom of movement allowed citizens of member states to live and work across the bloc, and it featured in the 2016 Brexit debate. Britain left the EU in January 2020, and Boris Johnson’s government replaced free movement with a points-based immigration system. Figures cited alongside Burnham’s comments put annual net migration at 330,000 in 2016 and at 900,000 after Brexit. Burnham said the earlier pattern of people coming to Britain and then leaving “perhaps wasn’t as difficult” as the pattern he described today.