Burnham: “Hard Brexit” will hit the poor

A “hard Brexit” delivered by a prime minister in hock to the Tory right will hit the poorest people hardest and deepen division, Andy Burnham will warn today.

The shadow Home Secretary will argue that Britain risks “burning its bridges” and being left isolated under Theresa May’s approach.

He will also send a message to Labour members that millions of the party’s votes used the referendum to vote for change on immigration.

It comes as Jeremy Corbyn made it plain in a series of broadcast interviews that he will not offer “false promises” on immigration with a pledge to cut numbers – which risks putting him at odds with some traditional Labour voters – and would instead seek to bring back Gordon Brown’s migrant impact fund, to help poorer communities.

Today Burnham will take a different stance and say Labour must do more to understand public concern over immigration, which contributed to the vote for Brexit, as well as continuing the attack on the Tories.

“Labour must face up fully to this fact: millions of our lifelong supporters voted to leave the EU and voted for change on immigration.

“The truth is the EU was working better for some parts of our country than it was for others. For some of our country’s least affluent areas, it wasn’t working well at all. These were the places that lost industry, got no real help to replace those good jobs and saw a collapse in property prices and whole streets bought up by absent private landlords. When the EU expanded, they experienced rapid change but were left to deal with by Westminster and Brussels.”

Burnham, who is set to quit the shadow Cabinet later this year in order to run for mayor of Greater Manchester, will renew his attack on May, who he previously shadowed when she was at the Home Office.

More follows shortly…