Burnham’s surprise EU-turn could deliver the Tories from a generational mess | Gaby Hinsliff
Badenoch would never have reopened the door on Brexit, but now that the PM has, it suits the Conservatives to let him walk through it
There’s no way on earth it should have worked, but somehow he may have got away with it. Last week, the actor Richard E Grant became the first contestant on The Traitors – a show whose only unbreakable rule is never to let anyone know you’re the murderer – to gleefully announce within minutes of being selected that yes, haha, it’s him! Yet even then many of his fellow contestants seemed to like him too much to recoil.
And that, roughly speaking, is now Andy Burnham’s Brexit strategy. After years of Labour politicians – not least Burnham himself, in the Makerfield byelection, without which he would not now be prime minister – trying to hide their real feelings about Brexit, Burnham has decided just to tell the truth and hope people roll with it. Leaving hasn’t worked, he said bluntly last week in Liverpool, and Britain should consider the alternatives. If you’re a leaver who suspects him of being out to unwind Brexit – well, yes, he is. This bold strategy seemingly surprised much of his own cabinet, an early lesson in how he likes to work for those who hadn’t studied his Manchester operation closely enough. But the oddly muted initial response to what would once have been a seismic shock suggests it’s wrongfooting some opponents, too.
Gaby Hinsliff is a Guardian columnist
