Nandy balks at Brexit rerun as Burnham chases closer EU ties

Lisa Nandy has little appetite for a second round of the Brexit wars. The culture secretary told the BBC's Sunday with Kuenssberg she doesn't want to repeat 'circular arguments about in or out, leave or remain', even as Prime Minister Andy Burnham pushes for closer ties with Brussels. Nandy's Wigan seat voted heavily Leave in 2016, and she is one of the cabinet's most cautious voices on reversing Brexit.

Asked whether she wanted back in, she was evasive: 'I don't know if that's a choice we have.' Still, she conceded Burnham is right to confront the failings of the current arrangement, telling Sky News it matters to 'be honest' that 'the deal that we got is not what we were promised'. She framed the road ahead as a matter of 'trade-offs and choices' requiring a conversation with voters nationwide, hinting Brexit will loom large at the next election.

Burnham is due in Dublin on Thursday for the European Political Community summit, where he'll meet a raft of European leaders for the first time and try to get Labour's reset deal across the line. At a Brexit reset meeting in Brussels on 20 November, agreements on agriculture and food, emissions trading and youth experience visas are expected to be locked in. 'This summit will show what we can achieve when we work together, but it doesn't need to be the end of our ambition,' Burnham told the Sunday Mirror.

Officials are already sketching out the next phase, which could include another attempt to join the EU's €150bn (£125bn) Safe defence fund, plus collaboration on law enforcement, borders and visas for touring artists. Soon after Brussels, Burnham is expected to deliver a speech laying out options for a closer relationship, arguing it serves the UK's long-term interest. No 10 sources said he wants to 'frame the conversation, not go straight to the endgame' before testing public opinion.

Not everyone in cabinet is on board. Business secretary Jonathan Reynolds and home secretary Shabana Mahmood are wary of a full rejoin push, and some colleagues privately warn the row would only hand ammunition to Nigel Farage's Reform UK. Senior government figures say Burnham wants a mandate to open negotiations in Labour's next manifesto, with any later referendum purely confirmatory. 'You can't ask people to vote on an undefined plan like in 2016. That was David Cameron's mistake,' one said.

Michel Barnier, the EU's former chief Brexit negotiator, offered a blunt warning against picking and choosing. 'There is no cherrypicking. There will be no possibility to have one freedom and not the other,' he told the BBC. Nandy also swatted down Tory chair Kevin Hollinrake's claim that she used Remembrance Sunday to make an EU pitch by linking it to the Erasmus+ expansion, saying she 'cannot see what is political' about helping young people grasp their grandparents' contribution.