Burnham blames Brexit hours after hailing post-Brexit trade deal

The Prime Minister blamed Brexit for Britain's low growth on Wednesday morning, then spent the afternoon praising a trade deal only possible outside the European Union.

Andy Burnham told the Commons that leaving the EU had damaged the economy - a line that drew anger from Conservative and Reform MPs who pointed to his own government's celebration of a new trade agreement with Australia just hours earlier. The Guardian noted the global bond shock affecting UK borrowing costs, while GB News highlighted the timing: Burnham's Brexit criticism came the same day Labour ministers were briefing journalists on the benefits of post-Brexit trade flexibility.

The contradiction sits in the grammar. When a government says Brexit enables good things, Brexit is a choice - an instrument judged by what it delivers. When the same government says Brexit caused bad things, Brexit becomes a condition - something that happened to the country, beyond anyone's control. Both can't be true. Either leaving was a decision successive governments made, with consequences they own, or it was an external shock nobody could have avoided. The Prime Minister appears to be running both lines at once.

The Sun reported that Burnham used his first Commons speech as Prime Minister to attack Margaret Thatcher and Brexit, while the Daily Express accused him of playing "rock star" rather than governing. The question isn't whether Brexit has costs - every policy does. The question is whether this government believes it controls anything, or whether every difficulty will be blamed on decisions made before they arrived.

The next test comes at the Budget in October, when the Chancellor must explain how growth returns without changing the policies Burnham says are strangling it.