Brexit has been firmly in the spotlight in Andy Burnham’s early days as Prime Minister.

The Liberal Democrats delivered the following message for the Prime Minister via Facebook on Wednesday: “Andy Burnham must drop Labour's stifling red lines and forge a new relationship with Europe.”

These red lines are, of course, those with which former prime minister Sir Keir Starmer painted himself into a corner on Brexit. Sir Keir pledged, in the run-up to the July 2024 general election, not to take the UK back into the European Union, single market or even the customs union.

Sir Keir had plenty of warm words on Europe when he was prime minister, and at least this was a step forward from the ideology of his Tory Brexiter predecessors.

However, Labour’s red lines prevent it from mitigating in any significant way the colossal damage arising from the two key elements of the Tory hard Brexit: loss of frictionless trade with the huge European bloc and the ending of free movement of people between the UK and European Economic Area.

Urging Mr Burnham to drop the red lines, the Liberal Democrats declared: “The single biggest lever that this government could pull to boost economic growth in this country is to get a better trading relationship with Europe.”

This is surely the case.

The SNP, for its part, was rather more blunt than the Liberal Democrats.

It declared last Friday: “It’s taken less than two weeks for the new Westminster Prime Minister to run into the wall of economic reality.

“Despite promising a shiny new brand of politics, Andy Burnham’s grand plans are already colliding with the chronic, embedded failure of Brexit Britain.

“Expecting a new Westminster Prime Minister to fix a structurally broken UK economy without addressing Brexit is like going for a suntan on the deck chairs of a sinking cruise ship – it might be relaxing........

© Herald Scotland