𝓤𝓷𝓲𝓽𝓮𝓭 𝓝𝓮𝔀𝓼

The future of Brexit is under threat if Andy Burnham becomes prime minister, the founder of Vote Leave has warned. Lord Elliott, who has written a new book on Brexit, said Left-wing parties such as the Greens and the Lib Dems will try to push Labour to commit to rejoining the EU at the next general election.

It comes as Mr Burnham looks set to enter 10 Downing Street within weeks following Sir Keir Starmer’s resignation as Prime Minister. The Tory peer, who founded the official campaign group for the 2016 referendum, said: “Andy Burnham is on the record saying that he would like to see the UK back in the EU within his lifetime.

“We know he’s slightly rowed back from that position during the by-election, but that’s his personal belief. It will be interesting to see what he tries to do as prime minister.

“Of course, he’ll be very conscious of the fact that his seat is a more Leave-leaning seat. But with that said, Keir Starmer has already put in train edging back towards the EU with the dynamic alignment and the EU reset Bill, so in a sense is taking tentative steps back towards the EU.

“That does worry me because, of course, with the dynamic alignment, that essentially means that we become a single market rule-taker rather than making the rules ourselves.

“I think we’ll start to see a bidding war with parties on the Left of British politics – the Green Party and the Lib Dems – to pull the Labour Party towards a rejoin position.

“So we are in a situation sadly where the next election looks likely to be almost a re-run of the Brexit referendum, where you have the parties on the Right saying let’s make the most of Brexit and leave the European Convention on Human Rights and complete Brexit, and then parties on the Left having varying degrees of either rejoining or rejoining the customs union or leaning more in towards the EU.”

But Lord Elliott insisted that voters would not opt to rejoin the EU if they were given the choice in another referendum, despite polling suggesting the majority of Britons would back the move.

He said: “Absolutely not. If you drill down on that polling and say to them you’d likely have to join the euro, Britain would have to be part of the Schengen Area, we wouldn’t have the rebate so our membership fee would be about £28billion a year, when you point out to them the down sides of rejoining, what we’d have to sign up to, it swings right in favour of stay out.

“So the polling is still very much in a Leave direction when you look beneath the bonnet.”

Lord Elliott argued that Brexit has been a success because the UK has “taken back control” and pointed to saving billions of pounds on EU membership fees and bumper free trade deals with other countries.

But he acknowledged more could be done to make the most of the hard-won freedoms.

He said: “It’s now the UK Parliament in charge of UK policy-making, that’s what Brexit was all about.

“On top of that, we’re not paying the membership fee of the EU, which would now be about £28billion a year without the rebate.

“And we’ve got some significant trade deals, not least with the Asia-Pacific countries.

“Also, the fact that the EU has continued going in the wrong direction in many ways has helped us. For example, it’s brought in an additional 40,000 new rules and regulations since we left, so we’re not burdened with that red tape.

“So there’s been some significant achievements since Brexit, but I think there’s a lot more we could make of it. For example, we’re still wedded to the Habitats Directive, which is basically stalling up British housebuilding and development and holding back the economy there.”

Mr Burnham, the former Greater Manchester mayor, said last year that he wanted to see Britain back in the EU within his lifetime. However, when he stood in the Makerfield by-election, he insisted that the Brexit arguments should not be “re-run”.

Ten Years On: The Untold Story of Brexit is published on June 23 by Biteback Publishing