Few people will be surprised to hear that Andy Burnham has indicated that the forthcoming deals with the European Union – over food and farming, emissions trading and youth mobility – will be just the start of a longer process. As the Prime Minister told the Sunday Mirror yesterday, ahead of next week’s EU-UK meeting which will finalise the details of Britain’s EU reset:

This summit will show what we can achieve together – but it doesn’t need to be the end of our ambition. Working more closely with Europe could drive growth, make our country safer and give us more tools to tackle illegal migration. That’s a conversation worth having.

Few will be surprised because the Labour party has been itching to reverse Brexit ever since it returned to power two years ago, and this summer it finally got a leader willing to make it happen. And those who have been monitoring the patter of our prime minister, and the codewords he deploys in his otherwise nebulous utterances, will know that when Andy Burnham says he ‘wants a conversation’ he actually means that he doesn’t. That’s why the meeting on 20 November could represent a milestone, the first baby steps towards Britain being dragged back into the EU.

Labour has long ceased to be the party that looks out for the interests of the working class

For many people, the era that began after we left the EU six years ago is spoken of as ‘the great betrayal’. Sure, we had unshackled ourselves from this undemocratic, technocratic, 20th-century anachronism, but our politicians, also hampered by an uncooperative civil service, wholly failed to take advantage of our new liberties. We didn’t free ourselves from a plethora of EU laws and directives, the Windsor Framework compromised the integrity of the United Kingdom, and we failed to take control of our borders. Our politicians did actually the reverse, with the Boriswave witnessing the influx of unprecedented numbers of migrants.

This ‘great betrayal’, this monumental act of prevarication, was mainly the fault of Conservative governments which were either divided or unserious about the principle of sovereignty. What we have today is a situation which is even worse: a Labour party that is largely pro-EU by conviction – Lisa Nandy’s ill-timed comments at the weekend about the need to ‘repair’ relations with Europe made that clear. Its voices of opposition in Red Wall constituencies merely speak out from expediency.

Andy Burnham has already expressed his desire to rejoin the EU in his lifetime, and as ex-Foreign Office director John Jenkins reminded us last week, Burnham has a propensity to capitulate, a character flaw which is being noticed by hostile states around the world. One of the biggest, a proud EU bent on revenge for our disobedience, has also taken note.

That core of the Labour party which used to be suspicious of the EU, in its previous incarnation of the European Economic Community, seeing it as the anti-democratic behemoth it was, is now but a memory. The likes of Tony Benn, Barbara Castle, Peter Shore and Austin Mitchell have departed this world. Our Chancellor, John Healey, is only opposed to it pragmatically.

Labour has long ceased to be the party that looks out for the interests of the working class or has material concerns at its priority. Its obsession now is issues relating to race, gender and religion. It’s a party fixated with image and feelings, one that censors to stop people being offended. It’s governed by emotion not reason. Its members hated Brexit because they feared what it did for our ‘reputation’ and ‘global standing’. Like neurotic, insecure teenagers, they are desperate to be in with the mean girls in Brussels.

In the approach to the 20 November meeting, the EU is now demanding that we reverse a law passed this year allowing an increase in the number of European criminals who can be deported from Britain. Elsewhere, according to a draft text seen by the Telegraph last week, Britain has already agreed to pay into EU development schemes as the price for rejoining the bloc’s electricity market. It will push hard for freedom of movement, and Burnham will capitulate.

The government has indicated that it will give in on agriculture and food standards. Burnham claims this will increase annual GDP growth by 0.4 per cent, to the tune of £5.1 billion per year. That is a pittance compared to a welfare budget set to hit £400 billion by the end of the decade. A hypothetical £5 billion per year is a poor return for handing over control of areas intrinsic to our sovereignty.

That, ultimately, is what Brexit was all about. And whereas the Conservatives, for all the mistakes they made when they were in power, do appreciate the importance of the principle of sovereignty, a Labour party in thrall to progressive doctrines, whose members recoil in horror at the sight of the Union Flag, doesn’t. Next week could herald the greatest Brexit betrayal yet.

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