Andy Burnham has reopened a debate that successive UK prime ministers tried to settle. But the history of Brexit suggests that getting closer to the European Union may prove just as difficult as leaving it.

For years, prime ministers have attempted to put Brexit behind them. Burnham has just done the opposite. By suggesting that Britain could “go all the way” and rejoin the EU, he has broken with the cautious approach of his predecessors.

His intervention has brought renewed urgency to the question: how close should Britain remain to the EU, and on what terms?

The options are not new. From Theresa May’s attempts to secure a bespoke deal to Boris Johnson’s hard Brexit, Rishi Sunak’s pragmatism and Keir Starmer’s reset, governments have grappled with essentially the same dilemma. That is, how can the country retain the benefits of cooperation with the EU without accepting the obligations that come with it?

May: trying to have it both ways

Theresa May entered Downing Street with the task of delivering Brexit but no blueprint for doing so. Her declaration that “Brexit means Brexit” concealed a fundamental contradiction: she promised to leave the single market and customs union, end free movement and end the jurisdiction of the European Court of Justice in Britain. But she also vowed to preserve close economic ties with the bloc.

May’s hopes for a bespoke deal clashed with the EU’s insistence........

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