Burnham put rejoining the EU on the table. Voters back it, but Reform leads the polls

Andy Burnham said on 30 September that Britain should consider every option for its future relationship with the European Union, including rejoining it. “We could stay as we are,” he told the BBC. “We could look at what George Osborne has said about a customs union. We could look at what the Liberal Democrats said at their conference about single market, or we could go all the way,” Reuters reported. A day earlier he told Labour’s annual conference that Brexit had “done more harm than good”.

It broke a taboo for a British prime minister, and Europe noticed at once. “If the British want to come back and if the prime minister is moving in that direction, I think that is very good news both for his country and for Europeans,” Emmanuel Macron said in Madrid, AFP reported. Burnham, prime minister since Labour MPs replaced Keir Starmer in July, plans to set out the options around a UK-EU summit that the EU hopes to hold in November.

Voters have moved

Public opinion is on Burnham’s side. Polls this year that asked how people would vote in another referendum have put support for membership at a record 60% on average, once those who do not know are excluded, John Curtice of UK in a Changing Europe wrote in June. In a separate question, 56% told YouGov that they favour rejoining and 35% that they oppose it. In April, 51% told Ipsos that Brexit had been “more of a failure”, against 13% who called it “more of a success”.

Rejoin minus stay out, percentage points, if there were another referendum

Rejoin minus stay out, percentage points, if there were another referendum. Source: Polls compiled by John Curtice, UK in a Changing Europe, June 2026. Ages and 2016 non-voters: polls in May 2026. All voters: 2026 average, excluding don’t knows.

Aged 18 to 24	+54pp
Did not vote in 2016	+34pp
All voters	+20pp
Aged 65 and over	−18pp

Source: Polls compiled by John Curtice, UK in a Changing Europe, June 2026. Ages and 2016 non-voters: polls in May 2026. All voters: 2026 average, excluding don’t knows.The Macro Notebook

The change comes from two groups. Some who voted Leave have switched: in polls this May, only 72% of them said they would vote to stay out. And those who did not vote in 2016, many of them too young then, back rejoining by 51% to 17%. Among 18 to 24-year-olds, 67% would vote to rejoin and 13% to stay out. Among people aged 65 and over, 53% would stay out.

The politics are harder

The party that opposes it most is level with Labour. Reform UK, led by Nigel Farage, had 25% in YouGov’s latest poll, taken on 27 and 28 September, against 24% for Labour and 19% for the Conservatives, YouGov reported. Richard Tice, Reform’s deputy leader, said Burnham was “trying to sneak us back into Brussels via the back door”.

Immigration is the hardest part. The EU does not offer its single market without the free movement of people, and Labour’s 2024 manifesto, which still binds Burnham, ruled out a customs union, the single market and free movement. “Any attempt to move closer, as Burnham says he wants, is unthinkable without throwing open the borders again and losing any control over EU entrants,” Tim Shipman wrote in the Spectator. “To put it mildly, this is not what the British public wants.”

The polls do not settle that point. Many voters think Brexit failed, but they do not all blame Brexit itself: 46% told More in Common that it “could have worked well but politicians have handled it badly”. Leave voters who are unhappy about immigration since Brexit still mostly want to stay out.

What to watch

The UK-EU summit, which the EU wants to hold in November, and whether it brings the deals already under discussion on food standards, youth mobility and carbon trading. Whether Labour drops its red lines on the customs union, the single market and free movement before the next general election, expected in 2029. And the polls: if Reform stays level with Labour, the next election could turn into the second referendum that Burnham has not yet proposed. Anand Menon of UK in a Changing Europe was cautious about how far Burnham has gone: “All he seems to have said is: ‘We’ll have a conversation about it now’.”