Sawt Falasteen - UK Labour leadership hopeful reopens Brexit debate

Wes Streeting, who resigned as health minister last week and announced he would run to replace Starmer, broke years of guarded silence by the party on Brexit, in what was seen as a tactic in a potential leadership contest.

Dozens of Labour MPs last week urged Starmer to quit after dire local election results, raising the prospect of a change in prime minister, just two years into the party's tenure.

With Streeting and Greater Manchester Mayor Andy Burnham poised to launch challenges against Starmer, the former raised the politically toxic issue of Brexit, calling for Britain to eventually rejoin the EU.

"We need a new special relationship with the EU, because Britain's future lies with Europe, and one day back in the European Union," Streeting said at a conference on Sunday -- a rejoining pledge that Starmer has so far avoided.

"I'm grounded in the job that I'm doing, which is to make sure we are closer to the EU," Starmer, who has resisted calls to quit, said Monday.

Regarding Brexit, he added he would "not get lost in a debate about what may happen years down the line".

- Battle with far-right -

Britain's membership of the EU has long been a thorny subject and 10 years ago a narrow majority of the population voted to leave the bloc in a referendum.

Since 2020, when Britain finally left, few prominent figures have dared to revive the question, recalling the political paralysis and bitter division of the time.

But the issue reared its head in the chaos following Labour's poor election performance this month.

Burnham is preparing to stand for a parliamentary seat that would allow him to compete to replace Starmer. To do so, he must defeat the pro-Brexit, anti-immigration party Reform UK in the constituency of Makerfield.

Reform UK leader and Brexit figurehead Nigel Farage warned voters in that by-election in northwest England that Labour would "drag you closer to the EU".

The debate forced Burnham to distance himself from Streeting's stance, saying while there was a case to rejoin the EU in the long term, he would not campaign on the issue in the by-election if selected as Labour's candidate.

"My view is that Brexit has been damaging, but I also believe the last thing we should do right now is rerun those arguments," he said Monday in a speech that sounded like a pitch to be leader.

He said a vote for him would be "a vote to change Labour".

Starmer said he would "one hundred percent" support whoever was named the Labour candidate for the special election.

"A Labour candidate to beat Reform. That is the fight that we are in," Starmer said.

- 'Derail' by-election -

The Times newspaper reported that Burnham's allies saw Streeting's Brexit comments as a bid to "derail" the campaign in Makerfield, where a majority voted for Brexit in 2016.

Deputy Prime Minister David Lammy insisted that rejoining the EU was a "red line" for Starmer's government.

"Wes Streeting has left the government. He can have a debate, he can comment, that is not my position," Lammy told Sky News.

Kemi Badenoch, who leads the main opposition Conservatives, said the Labour in-fighting showed the ruling party "does not have a plan for this country".

Neither Streeting nor Burnham has formally launched a leadership contest, which would need the backing of at least 81 Labour MPs.

But four junior ministers have resigned and numerous lawmakers have called for Starmer to step down, exposing frictions in a party that has sought to differentiate itself from the chaos of the previous Conservative governments.

E.Aziz--SF-PST