Labour's Starmer revolt revives thorny debate over rejoining EU

Lucy White and Alex Wickham, Bloomberg News on May 17, 2026

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The thorny question of whether Britain should unwind a decade of estrangement from the European Union is resurfacing as the Labour Party starts to imagine a future beyond Prime Minister Keir Starmer.

Two key figures have emerged as potential challengers after a series of political body blows that have left Starmer’s leadership in crisis, and the specter of rejoining the EU is creeping back into the debate.

Wes Streeting, who resigned from Starmer’s government as health secretary last week, argued in favor of rejoining the bloc in a speech on Saturday, saying the decision to leave in 2016 was “a catastrophic mistake.” While less forceful in tone, Andy Burnham, the mayor of Greater Manchester who plans to stand as Labour’s candidate in a June 18 by-election so he can mount a challenge against Starmer, also said in an interview on Saturday that there was a case for rejoining the EU.

The comments follow heavy losses by the party in local elections earlier this month to the right-wing Reform UK and the leftist Green Party. In the aftermath, Labour members of Parliament pointed to voters’ dissatisfaction with Starmer as a contributing factor, and more than 90 MPs have since publicly called for the prime minister to resign.

Although Streeting refrained from mounting an immediate challenge against Starmer after stepping down, he said on Saturday that he would run in a leadership contest against Burnham, who must first gain a seat in the House of Commons before he can stage a campaign.

Streeting also suggested that he would focus on a push for the U.K. to rejoin the EU, a move Starmer has balked at, instead advocating for closer ties with the bloc without fully rejoining the single market.

That puts Burnham in a dilemma as he prepares to contend a by-election in a constituency that voted resoundingly to leave the EU 10 years ago. His allies have accused Streeting of deliberately raising the salience of rejoining the bloc to confound Burnham’s chances of beating the anti-EU Reform UK. At the same time, Reform officials have said they would exploit the Manchester mayor’s past ruminations about returning to the EU in their campaign against him.

Speaking at a conference hosted by the Labour-aligned Progress think-tank in London, Streeting said the U.K.’s future is with Europe. “The biggest economic opportunity we have is on our doorstep,” he said. “We need a new special relationship with the EU, because Britain’s future lies with Europe – and one day back in the European Union.”

At Labour’s annual conference seven months ago, Burnham also said the U.K. should rejoin the EU. But, speaking on ITV News on Saturday, he adopted a more cautious tone. “In the long-term there is a case for that, but I’m not advocating that in this by-election,” Burnham said. “In fact, what I am saying is focus now domestically.”

Burnham’s careful phrasing shows the tightrope he walks. Before he can become eligible to challenge Starmer, he will first have to win the by-election in the Greater Manchester constituency of Makerfield, where Labour lawmaker Josh Simons has stepped aside to facilitate a Burnham candidacy. In recent local elections, that area voted decisively for Reform.

A victory for Reform in Makerfield would see the party gain a ninth member in the 650-seat House of Commons, and would help cement party leader and Brexit architect Nigel Farage’s claims that his party can beat Labour even in its heartlands. The upstart party is trying to prove itself as a credible contender for government, with a general election due by mid-2029 at the latest.

Lisa Nandy, the U.K.’s culture secretary, who herself campaigned to remain in the EU in 2016, told the BBC’s Sunday with Laura Kuenssberg that it would be a mistake to reopen Brexit wounds. “I don’t really understand why the sudden focus on Europe,” she said. “We’re already as a government trying to repair in a pragmatic way the needless damage that was done by that poor Brexit deal to peoples’ living standards in towns like mine, without reopening the circular arguments that we ended up in as a country.”

While Labour pledged to improve relations with the EU in its manifesto ahead of the 2024 general election, it stopped short of promising a reunion, setting a return to the customs union, single market and freedom of movement as red lines. Instead it has pledged to introduce a piece of legislation which will fast-track the process for creating U.K. laws to align the country with new EU rules, and at a summit this summer the two sides are likely to discuss further areas for development.

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