Rachel Reeves has said Brexit has made Britain "poorer, weaker and less secure" and that the country's future lies in the European Union, in a Sunday Times article trailed late on Saturday night.
The former chancellor, who left the Treasury this year, also wrote that she welcomed Prime Minister Andy Burnham's "leadership" in opening a debate on the UK's relationship with Brussels. Her intervention goes further than anything she said in office, when the government ruled out rejoining the single market or customs union.
"No one in the Treasury ever doubted where my instincts were. I do believe Britain's future lies in the European Union," she wrote, according to extracts published by GB News.
The Independent quoted the same article: "Brexit has made us poorer, weaker and less secure. There is a debate to be had about our future relationship with Europe, and I welcome Andy Burnham's leadership in facing up to this."
Reeves does not, in the extracts published so far, set out a timetable or call for an application to rejoin. The Independent has characterised her article as a call to rejoin the EU; her quoted words stop at saying Britain's future lies within it.
The article follows Burnham's remarks on ITV's Good Morning Britain on Monday, when he said he wanted the UK back in the EU within his lifetime but ruled out any change in this Parliament. "I would like to see that happen in my lifetime," he said, according to HuffPost UK, adding that the UK was "way, way, away from that".
Bloomberg reported him saying: "I don't think things have worked out as people said they would." He said he was "not proposing any changes in this Parliament", according to britbrief.co.uk.
Reeves helped write Labour's 2024 manifesto, which committed the party to staying outside the single market, the customs union and freedom of movement. Her remark that nobody in the Treasury doubted her instincts suggests her private view sat some distance from the line she defended in public.
As chancellor she argued for closer ties without membership. At the London School of Economics in February she said the "biggest prize is clearly with the EU", and in her Mais Lecture in March she said Brexit had done "deep damage" and that Britain was ready to align with many EU business rules. Reuters reported at the time that the government "held firm in ruling out rejoining the single market or entering a customs union".
Her Sunday Times article also defends her economic record. According to GB News, she wrote that recent headlines about the resilience of the economy could not have been written without her fixing the "foundations that we inherited", and asked: "When I look back at it now, would I say I got everything right?"
It is her second public intervention in a week. On Thursday she co-wrote an article with Annegret Kramp-Karrenbauer, Nathalie Loiseau and Chrystia Freeland urging the EU to seize €210bn (£175bn) of frozen Russian assets for Ukraine.
Burnham's comments on Monday drew opposition from Conservative leader Kemi Badenoch and Reform UK leader Nigel Farage, GB News reported. Neither has yet responded to Reeves's article.
An EU-UK summit is due in November. The Independent reports it is scheduled for 20 November and that Burnham is expected to set out proposals on the relationship around that date. Downing Street has not said whether Reeves's views reflect government thinking.
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