𝓤𝓷𝓲𝓽𝓮𝓭 𝓝𝓮𝔀𝓼

Andy Burnham might have expected Kemi Badenoch to launch a full-scale “Save Brexit” campaign the moment he suggested Britain could rejoin the European Union. Mrs Badenoch is alert for every potential trap. She knows that millions of Britons who are worried about the spiralling cost of living will not look kindly on politicians who spend between now and the next election refighting Brexit wars. Her claim that the Labour leader “wants to drag Britain back into the tedious and divisive Brexit debates” is a canny move.

Rather than get pushed into defending the deals negotiated by her predecessors – which might not win her cheers in Liberal Democrat-held constituencies she needs to win back – she will present Mr Burnham as the Brexit bore who wants to talk about the EU because he lacks a plan to tackle Britain’s challenges today.

The Conservative leader does not have to shout about Brexit to make her position clear. Voters know there is no chance of a Tory Government taking Britain back into the bloc; a party committed to pulling out of the European Convention on Human Rights is not going to phone up the Commission on day one and ask for an application form to rejoin. Nigel Farage has no hesitation about publicly defending the decision to leave the EU; he can hound Labour on the issue across the Leave-voting Red Wall.

Brexiteers are not frightened by opinion polls that reveal apparently strong pro-EU sentiment among the populace. YouGov last month found 59% backed rejoining – including 85% of Labour voters – with just 32% opposed. Veterans of the 2016 campaign to leave the union are confident that once Britons are presented with the prospect of a cash-strapped UK having to make a net contribution of billions of pounds to the EU Budget – and face the spectre of adopting the euro and returning to free movement of people – that present enthusiasm will melt faster than an ice lolly on Venus.

However, a genuine battle of ideas about Britain’s future is looming. Influential think tanks and campaign groups are pushing for the UK to return as a member state; former Thatcher aide Lord Redwood is at the heart of Britain Unbound, which fires off salvos of briefings in favour of the country’s “continued independence outside the EU”; there is talk of building a non-party political movement which would raise an army of grassroots Brexit champions.

An epic stand-off between Rejoiners and Brexiteers would remind everyone of the family rows, economic uncertainty and parliamentary paralysis which gripped Britain in the run-up to the referendum and the years that followed. If Mrs Badenoch rises above the fray and succeeds in casting Mr Burnham as a pro-EU obsessive who threatens to plunge the nation into turmoil, then she will can go into the election promising stability and lower taxes; it’s hard to imagine a better message to win the centre ground.