Would a Labour leadership contest make 2029 a Brexit redo?

[UknownM]

Posting because this changed materially over the weekend.

Wes Streeting confirmed on Saturday at the Progress conference that he will stand in any Labour leadership contest, AND he explicitly called for the UK to rejoin the EU. He described leaving as "a catastrophic mistake" and said "Britain's future lies with Europe and one day back in the European Union." Andy Burnham, the other leading challenger, has separately told ITV "in the long-term, there is a case for that" rejoining, though he hasn't put it at the centre of his Makerfield bid.

Both have said any move would need a fresh electoral mandate. Streeting frames it as Labour's next manifesto.

Reform UK's response was instant. Farage on the Telegraph: "Open borders Burnham must be stopped." Reform won every council ward in Makerfield at the May 7 locals (around 50% of the vote, Labour at 25%), so the by-election Burnham is fighting just became the first concrete test of where rejoin sentiment actually sits.

The bit I had not seen joined up anywhere was the structural read: if both viable Labour leadership contenders are openly on rejoin, the 2029 general election is now substantively a Brexit-redo. Reform UK ran in 2024 on Brexit-was-correct. That assumption is now contested by the people closest to the current government.

Full piece with sources cited inline: trendingsheet.com/article/streeting-burnham-eu-rejoin-reform-uk-labour-leadership-uk

Where do people sit on this? Mandate-required-but-yes, or hard-no?

Putin to the left of me, Trump to the right, here I am, stuck in the middle with EU.

Wish we'd never left.
Don't know if I can face it all over again.
Would that it were just easy!
Bloody Farage.

I hope not!

I voted against Brexit. I cried when the result was to leave the EU. It was a catastrophic mistake.

The EU is not perfect. It has cost a fortune to leave and diverted finite and precious government and civil service and corporate resources away from the business of making our country run efficiently, safer and profitably.

But I certainly would NOT vote to rejoin.

It would lead to massive resentment within the country; years more uncertainty and government being sidetracked onto a huge rejoin project. The cost and time and waste of it all would make me furious.

All our recent governments have been utterly incompetent .

Do you seriously believe they could negotiate a re-entry that would be in any way fair or advantageous for the Uk? you’re a fool if you do believe that. We would be going back in on the back foot, you can bet we would be punished and massively screwed over. There are a lot of governmental resources in the EU - plenty of them to be far cleverer than us in negotiation. They will run rings around us. Again.

We would not get our Veto back - which was one of our biggest advantages of being in the EU.

So we would go back in FAR worse than when we left, to what is undeniably a very flawed organisation. Do you really think that’s a good plan?

Me too @MaryTheMagical