UK Officials Open Talks With EU on Long-Term Ties, Including Possible Return to Free Movement

On Tuesday morning, Jonathan Reynolds, the business secretary, went on BBC Radio 4's Today programme and said that British officials have begun discussions with the EU about a long-term relationship, one that could include a return to free movement. In the same breath he insisted that the British people "are the boss" over what the UK ends up accepting.

Reynolds was careful about where the government's attention sits right now. The immediate focus, he said, is the EU summit in November, where the two sides are expected to seal an agreement easing some trading restrictions, alongside a youth mobility deal. He said the package would include a food and drink deal and an arrangement on emissions trading, and that these would make a significant difference.

But the prime minister, Andy Burnham, wants more than that, Reynolds said. Officials will be talking to their EU counterparts about what the future options for the relationship might be. Reynolds described a series of policy changes on the European side that will affect the UK, and said the government needs to keep uncertainty to a minimum. Burnham, he said, will set out how to resolve the long-term relationship after the summit, and will be frank with the public about the trade-offs.

Reynolds said no assumptions had been made about the stage after that. He said the prime minister wants to lay out options for resolving some of the tensions that exist. He also said no decision would be taken without voters getting a say, though he did not specify whether that would come through a general election or a referendum.

The prompt for the talk of free movement was an interview Burnham gave the Sunday Times, in which he pleaded for an honest discussion on the subject and made clear that ruling it out would no longer be a red line in talks with Brussels. He also said he believed rejoining the single market and accepting free movement could be done without another referendum, provided Labour put it in its manifesto. Fully rejoining the EU, by contrast, would require another in-out poll, he said.

Burnham acknowledged the difficulties. Free movement had very significant challenges attached, he said, and he had spoken about them in his earlier time in parliament. But he suggested it was a type of immigration that was perhaps less difficult than now, and he contrasted it with what he called revolving-door migration, where people come and then go back. The balance of migration has changed since then, he said, and the country has to have an honest discussion about it.

Not everyone in his party is comfortable. Several backbenchers with heavily pro-Brexit seats in the north and the Midlands are wary of reopening the arguments over free movement or rejoining the EU. Melanie Onn, the Labour MP for Great Grimsby and Cleethorpes, told the programme she is still not over the divisive debate that followed the referendum and does not think the scars have healed for many people. She called this an unnecessary conversation to be having at this time.

The sharpest criticism came from Nigel Farage, the Reform UK leader, who said it would be "very, very poor indeed" to begin discussing free movement. He noted that five months ago Burnham told leave-voting Makerfield he would not reopen these arguments, and that two and a half years ago a Labour government won a large majority on a pledge not to re-enter the single market or customs union or reopen free movement. Farage said the prime minister has no mandate, and that officials negotiating in Brussels already was "really very, very poor indeed."

The November summit comes first. After it, Burnham is due to set out the long-term options and their trade-offs, and how the public gets its say remains undecided.