🚨 EXPLAIN THIS! Northern Ireland kept access to the EU goods market. Since 2019: 🇪🇺 Northern Ireland: +12.7% 🇬🇧 UK: +6.3% Almost DOUBLE the economic growth. If leaving the EU was supposed to make us richer, why is Northern Ireland showing the Sunlit uplands are in the EU? 🇪🇺

Momentum is gathering ...... independent.co.uk/news/uk/po…

One of the many issues......

Why Andy Burnham is making the right call to say that EU freedom of movement is not (or no longer) the problem portrayed by some, and why Britain would not have to join Schengen or the euro if it rejoined the EU: labourlist.org/2026/10/imagi…

Well this is awkward…. Brexiter mentions the EU being at fault for car manufacturing decreasing in Europe. So what happens when we test this in the real world and have a country leave the EU? Oh right, we actually did this…. These are the results.

The honest discussion is FOM would marginally help UK economy but there won't be large EU migration fluxes as happened 20 years ago provided UK enforces EU 3/12 rule only to seek job with no benefits. FOM between similar EU advanced economies won't cause uncontrolled migration.

I wonder how many realise the Brexit import checks were never done and never will be. ..? It'd be too much (Mogg's words) "self harm". thus from Brexit date 1/1/21, the unilateral advantaging of the EU (their exporters over UK counterparts)... & smugglers ...will continue. The only solutions are rejoining the EU (SM & CU), or (the incumbent Govt's apparent plan) extending the Windsor Framework to the whole UK. This latter *will* level up the playing field for GB producers & remove the worst of the GB/NI border controls, but also make the whole UK a genuine vassal state to the EU, which the Brexiters always lied we were when an EU/ECJ member, with full representation bbc.com/news/business-612598…

Surely even dedicated anti-immigration leave supporters could not have wanted or expected this cruel turn of events from Brexit. eutoday.net/new-research-rev…

Perhaps an "honest discussion about freedom of movement" could start with the Home Office. Will the EU listen while the UK has such cruel & archaic immigration policies, especially towards EU citizens already supposedly "settled'? independent.co.uk/news/uk/po…

Free movement was one of the central political red lines that kept Britain outside the Single Market. Burnham is now explicitly saying that staying outside it would not be a red line and that Britain needs an honest, evidence-based discussion. This means one of the biggest practical obstacles to Single Market participation has just been politically loosened.

“The evidence is really clear in terms of 20% down in exports to the EU, 16,000 businesses no longer exporting to the EU, it has been the red tape on the EU deal we got, has been damaging to the economy” @AngelaRayner

❗️EXCLUSIVE❗️ Andy Burnham has opened the door to Britain rejoining the EU’s free movement rules, arguing an “honest discussion” about the idea is needed The PM said the nature of immigration has been “different” since Brexit, with more foreigners moving permanently to the UK rather than returning home Burnham noted how his father, Roy, an engineer, took advantage of the EU rules in the 1990s to work in Germany He also said since leaving the bloc Britain has lost access to ‘Eurodac’, an EU database on border crossings “I think you have to have a very factual, quite evidence-based debate about this,” he said Burnham made clear staying out of free movement would **not** be a red line for talks (unlike adopting the Euro or rejoining the Schengen Area) Burnham made the comments to me in one of four interviews conducted during his first 100 days in office. All unpacked in tomorrow’s Sunday Times. It’s big news. Free movement seen as a key reason why the country voted Brexit in 2016. No PM has made the argument for potentially rejoining since… until now. (Important to note: Burnham accepts there were ‘very significant challenges’ too with free movement. Hasn’t reached a firm decision yes or no. He continues to mull over ‘options’ for closer EU ties) KEY BURNHAM QUOTE “Freedom of movement had very significant challenges associated with it and I spoke about them in my previous time in Parliament. But, at the same time, it was a type of immigration that perhaps wasn’t as difficult (as now). “Revolving door migration where people would come and then go back is different. The balance of migration has changed, hasn’t it, since then? I think we’ve just got to have an honest discussion about those things.” Read the full story here: ‘Andy Burnham is open to adopting EU free movement’ thetimes.com/article/491a046…

"The world in which going it alone seemed plausible is long gone". prospectmagazine.co.uk/polit…

This is why Britain eventually has to confront the obvious. You cannot solve a structural growth crisis with an endless cycle of tax rises and spending restraint while deliberately keeping barriers between yourself and your largest market. The OBR still estimates Brexit leaves UK productivity around 4% lower in the long run. British goods exports have badly underperformed our competitors since the TCA came into force. So yes, fix planning. Fix energy. Invest in infrastructure. Support industry and farming. But the biggest structural growth reform sitting in front of Britain is the one Westminster still struggles to say out loud: 📢 reintegrate with Europe. Single Market. Customs Union. And ultimately, if Britain wants its full influence back, EU membership. You cannot budget your way around geography.

🦄 “Brexit sovereignty” doesn’t produce energy or food security. Brexit made Britain less resilient by separating itself from Europe. Food, fertiliser, electricity and now gas all lead back to essentially the same physical reality. We’re an island geographically, but our critical supply systems are European networks. Britain has declining North Sea production and is becoming increasingly dependent upon imported gas. National Gas said earlier this month that this increasing import dependence requires government action. Europe is Britain’s emergency energy reservoir. Last winter, National Gas says UK production and Norway provided baseload supply, while LNG, storage and imports from continental Europe provided the flexibility needed when demand surged. We’re now paying consumers’ money to keep European capacity available that the market was allowing to disappear. Ofgem says the expected cost is £1.19 per gas customer per year for five years. Importantly, this doesn’t buy a molecule of gas and doesn’t guarantee gas will be available. It just buys the option to access the European system when Britain needs it.