Commons
Yesterday, the new Prime Minister, Andy Burnham, delivered his first statement to the House of Commons. His diagnosis of the country’s problems identified “a series of wrong turns” since the 1980s, including Brexit:
“Political power was centralised, economic power privatised, the country deindustrialised, austerity followed, hollowing out councils and depriving them of the agency to act to reverse any of this. And then Brexit compounded the damage, ushering in a decade of low growth and stalled regeneration.”
This is refreshing because cross-party political honesty about Brexit is essential to address it. Today, he thanked Sir Ed Davey for repeating his Brexit message at today’s Prime Minister’s Questions.
Kyiv
Last week, on the train to Kyiv to meet Vlodymyr Zelenskyy, Andy Burnham told European Council President, Antonio Costa, that London should be ‘bolder’ in pursuing closer ties with the European Union. We await the next EU-UK summit, scheduled for the autumn, to see what specifically he means by ‘bolder’.
Iceland
In other news, Iceland has voted ‘no’ by 52.8% to 47.2% in a referendum on whether to restart its EU accession talks. The vote echoes the 52/48 split in the Brexit referendum. However, it’s important to note that the context was completely different to asking UK voters whether they would like the government to begin talks to join the EU.
Despite not being an EU member, Iceland is a long-standing membership of the European Economic Area (EEA) and Schengen. These memberships were not on the ballot paper. So Iceland continues to enjoy the associated benefits of freedom of movement and the single market. The trade-off is that Iceland pays into the EU budget and adopts the EU’s rules for the single market. Iceland also continues to remain independent of the Customs Union and the Common Fisheries Policy.
The August newsletter closes with a stunning picture of Iceland’s northern lights. It is early days, but there are signs that Andy Burnham is bringing his own northern light to parliament (I’ll get my coat).
