UK Officials Weigh Free Movement Talks With EU Ahead Of November Summit
Business Secretary Jonathan Reynolds says any long-term decision on movement rights would require British voters to have a say.
By Lucas Navarro ·
British officials have started talking with European Union counterparts about a long-term relationship that could eventually include free movement of people, though the immediate focus remains a summit in November aimed at easing trade barriers.
Business Secretary Jonathan Reynolds told BBC Radio 4's Today programme that talks about future options are underway, but the government's attention is on the November gathering and the specific changes it could produce. He said the summit's expected output includes a food and drink deal and arrangements covering emissions trading.
Reynolds said any decision about changing rules on movement between the UK and EU would go to voters before it takes effect. He did not say whether that would happen through a general election or a referendum. "The British people are the people who will decide this. They're the boss on this," he said.
Prime Minister Andy Burnham has asked for what he called an honest discussion about free movement, saying he wants a long-term and stable relationship with the bloc. He told the Sunday Times that staying out of free movement is no longer a condition he would refuse to discuss in negotiations.
Burnham also said that rejoining the single market and accepting free movement could be done if the Labour Party put it in its manifesto, without needing a new referendum. Rejoining the EU entirely, he said, would require another in-out vote.
Reynolds said no decisions had been made about what comes after the November summit. He said Burnham would explain the options to the public once the summit ends and would discuss the trade-offs involved.
Not everyone in Parliament shares the prime minister's openness to the subject. Melanie Onn, the Labour MP for Great Grimsby and Cleethorpes, said she considers the discussion unnecessary at this time.
Onn pointed to the disagreements that followed the 2016 referendum vote to leave the EU. "I am still not over the kind of very divisive debate that we had when we were leaving the EU post the referendum, and I don't think that the scars have healed for many people around the country," she told Today.
Reform UK leader Nigel Farage said opening a debate on free movement now would be "very, very poor indeed." He noted that Burnham told voters in Makerfield five months earlier that he would not reopen those arguments, and that Labour won a large parliamentary majority two and a half years ago on a pledge not to re-enter the single market or customs union.
"This prime minister has no mandate, and to hear that his officials are negotiating in Brussels already is really very, very poor indeed," Farage said. Backbench MPs representing seats in the north and Midlands that voted heavily to leave the EU have also expressed caution about revisiting free movement or EU membership.
