Andy Burnham's 'EU reset' torn apart by Alex Burghart: 'Completely against the referendum!'

Alex Burghart has launched a scathing attack on Andy Burnham over Labour's plans to "reset" the UK's relationship with the European Union.

Speaking to GB News, the Deputy Leader of the Conservative Party declared the move goes "completely against the Brexit referendum".

In a recent grilling in the House of Commons, Mr Burghart asked if Labour would rule out rejoining the bloc in the party's next general election manifesto.

In response, Foreign Office minister Hamish Falconer told MPs: "I can hear from the outrage behind me that I have many responsibilities, but writing the next Labour Party manifesto is not one of them.

"We are committed to the red lines, we were all elected under that manifesto. We want to go further and faster, we have inherited a poor deal with the EU and it is my job to retrieve it."

Pressing the minister further, Mr Burghart asked "why is it so hard" to rule out rejoining the EU.

Mr Falconer said: "I want to be clear to the House. We are not, despite the anxious desire among the opposition backbenches, prepared to rerun the same arguments as 2016.

"My constituents, as are the constituents of all of us right across the house, are concerned with the day-to-day impacts of the deal that we have inherited. It is my job to improve it. Our manifesto red lines remain in place."

Hitting out at the move, Mr Burghart told GB News that the agreement is being "quietly done" by the Government.

He said: "I think this has sort of dropped out of the news, which is one of the reasons I'm talking about it today, but Labour have been working on a plan to bind us back into the EU's rules, and it's all been quite quietly done.

"They've agreed that basically we will sign up to the EU's rules, that we will go back under the jurisdiction of the European Court, that we will pay for the privilege of having that, and I just think this is completely against the referendum."

The Tory deputy warned that being closer aligned with the EU will also create a "very big burden" for British businesses.

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He said: "I just think it's going to be very bad for a lot of British businesses, because you're going to have to adopt a whole raft of new EU legislation, even if you don't trade with the EU.

"And so it's going to be a very, very big burden on domestic producers, which is going to end up affecting customers here and people who are running their own businesses, and I think that's wrong.

"I want to be able to tell people about that so that they're aware of what the Government is doing."

Asked how the Tories would approach the UK's relationship with the EU, Mr Burghart made clear that outside of the Union, Britain can "make its own rules".

He said: "One of the great things opportunities about being outside of the EU is that we can make our own rules. The EU is famous for very complicated regulations, and actually there's a better way of doing things.

"It's the way that we did things before we were in the EU, where you just had very simple, straightforward rules. Everybody understands what they can and can't do, it's not all this endless appeal to the courts, it's much cleaner for business.

"It's much cheaper for everyone, and it also makes Britain a much more competitive place. It means that you can use the latest technologies without having to ask anyone's permission. You can innovate, you can grow.

"It's what a lot of our friends and partners do, it's what the US does, what Australia does, what New Zealand does, and I think we should be doing the same. I don't think that we should be going back to something that didn't work for us last time."