Andy Burnham returned to the House of Commons on Monday as MPs sat for the first time since the recess during party conferences, and told them he would press for new post-Brexit agreements with the EU at a November summit. The prime minister said the present relationship with the European Union “is not good enough”.
Britain and the EU will meet in Brussels on November 20. Burnham confirmed the date in a Commons statement on Monday afternoon, while the European Council president, Antonio Costa, announced the Brussels meeting on the EU’s behalf.
Burnham took office in July after Labour MPs removed Keir Starmer as prime minister. Starmer had begun the summit process, and Burnham is seeking to complete the agreements begun under his predecessor.
The proposed talks cover a new agreement on food and drink trade, a youth mobility scheme and an emissions-trading arrangement. The EU’s Made in Europe plans, intended to protect certain industrial sectors, remain a contested part of the negotiations.
The summit had first been planned for the summer. It was postponed after Starmer resigned and Labour MPs replaced him with Burnham, while disputes over the Made in Europe rules pushed it further into the autumn.
Burnham said closer cooperation on youth mobility, food and drink, and energy would support economic growth in the UK. He has also warned that the EU’s Made In Europe plans pose “a risk to UK manufacturing”.
The negotiations build on a post-Brexit agreement reached in May 2025. It kept EU fishing boats’ access to UK waters until 2038 in exchange for reduced checks on food exports to the EU, and allowed the UK to sell raw burgers and sausages into the bloc for the first time since Brexit.
Trade friction remains for some exporters. Scottish salmon faces a 100% rate of document checks at the border, costing around £100m in lost exports.
An energy agreement involving emissions trading could reduce wholesale energy costs by 20% in Northern Ireland, Burnham said. He claimed that agreements reached at the November summit could add the equivalent of £10bn per year to the economy by 2040.
Burnham said Labour’s commitments to remain outside the single market and customs union, and to avoid restoring freedom of movement, would remain in force until the next election.
He described pursuing closer ties within those limits as a duty, saying that rejection would be a “dereliction of duty”.
Kemi Badenoch, the Conservative Party leader, has opposed the effort. She called it “a terrible idea” to “reopen the Brexit debate” and said the prime minister was “unpicking” the agreement Britain signed with the EU.
Burnham told MPs: “At every stage, the British public will be the boss, and I am clear that public opinion currently supports a pragmatic approach like the one I am suggesting”.
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