Prime Minister Andy Burnham used his first address to the House of Commons to argue that Brexit and the deindustrialisation, privatisation and austerity that followed the 1980s left large parts of the UK, outside London and the South East, worse off. New YouGov polling shows most Britons back his view on Brexit, with 55 per cent agreeing it was a "wrong turn" for the country against 21 per cent who disagree, though voters are far more divided on whether his criticism of Margaret Thatcher's legacy holds up.

Burnham told MPs that political and economic power had been centralised and privatised since the 1980s, blaming this "failed economic model" for hollowed-out councils, desolate high streets and a water industry he called "a leaking monument" to private-interest governance. On Brexit, 78 per cent of 2024 Labour voters agreed it was a wrong turn compared with 59 per cent of Reform voters who saw it as the right choice; on Thatcher, opinion split more evenly, with 35 per cent calling her premiership a wrong turn and 28 per cent a right one, while roughly 60 per cent of Conservative and Reform voters defended her legacy. His comments were welcomed by pro-EU campaigners, coming days after reports that Brexit has cost UK exporters £11.7bn a year and that 98.2 per cent of businesses surveyed want to rejoin the single market.