Prime Minister Andy Burnham joined European leaders in Dublin on Thursday for a meeting of the European Political Community, as both sides put the finishing touches on a reset deal between the United Kingdom and the European Union that is set to be signed next week. The meeting, taking place under Ireland's largest security operation ever, focused on Ukraine, but for Burnham it was also a chance to state his case for closer relations with the bloc.
The European Political Community, known as the EPC, is a biannual forum established by French President Emmanuel Macron in 2022, bringing together nearly 50 leaders from across the continent. Thursday's meeting was attended by Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, who arrived late on Wednesday to meet European leaders, as well as US envoys Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner, who were travelling to Moscow after two days of talks on the Ukraine war in Abu Dhabi.
Burnham's appearance at the EPC was his first meeting with some of Europe's leaders since he entered Downing Street in July, following the resignation of Keir Starmer. The talks in Belgium next week are expected to deliver three main agreements that Burnham hopes will help spark life into the UK's anaemic economy, aiding his main objective of lowering living costs. The package is expected to cover food and drink trade, youth mobility and emissions trading.
The prime minister has made closer ties with the EU a key priority of his premiership, and he has warned MPs that sticking with the current status quo is inadequate for Britain. Speaking in Parliament on Monday, he said that ignoring the opportunity to secure a new arrangement would constitute a dereliction of duty. A megapoll of more than 11,000 people has indicated that 50 percent of Britons now back rejoining the European Union, while 28 percent oppose it.
Burnham's push for a reset has not been without controversy at home. He is facing a cabinet rift over his plan, with senior ministers publicly divided over how far the country should move back towards the bloc. Cabinet minister John Healey has said he does not expect to see Britain return to the European Union in his lifetime, and Home Secretary Shabana Mahmood has resisted the migration offer Burnham is preparing to win trade deals at the Brussels summit. Former prime minister David Cameron has also weighed in, warning that starting a conversation about rejoining would be very long and painful.
Burnham has been careful to stress that his approach does not amount to reopening the 2016 Brexit referendum. "I am not reopening the referendum. I respect the referendum result," he has said, and he has confirmed that the Labour manifesto's red lines will remain in place, meaning the UK will not rejoin the single market, the customs union, or allow freedom of movement. The reset, in his telling, is about practical cooperation, not about rejoining.
His diplomatic week has been a whirlwind. Before Dublin, Burnham attended the COP31 climate summit in Antalya, Turkey, where he pledged a new era of British climate leadership and announced a new climate security envoy, warning that the global consensus on tackling the crisis had broken down. He was the only leader from a G7 country to attend the summit, with the United States declining to send a delegation for the second year running.
From Antalya he flew to Dublin, where he was expected to announce further sanctions against Russia and to discuss hybrid threats to European security. The EPC meeting comes after a wave of hoax bomb threats targeting airlines and media organisations across Europe, with Irish police reporting new incidents every day this week. The security operation around the Dublin meeting is the largest Ireland has ever mounted.
The summit on 20 November in Brussels, which follows the Dublin meeting, will be the first test of whether Burnham can hold his cabinet together while reopening the Brexit settlement. The text of the reset deal is still being negotiated and could yet change before the summit, and the leaders of five European countries, from Germany, Belgium, the Netherlands, Luxembourg and Denmark, have written to the presidents of the European Commission and the European Council calling for closer ties with Britain.
For Burnham, the stakes are high. The reset is the centrepiece of his economic plan, and its success or failure will shape his premiership. If the Brussels summit delivers the agreements he is seeking, he will be able to argue that Britain can have a closer relationship with Europe without rejoining the EU. If it fails, he will face questions about whether the reset was ever more than a slogan. The answers will come next Friday, in Brussels.
