LONDON, Oct. 1 (Xinhua) -- Britain's governing Labour Party used its annual conference in Liverpool this week to set out a broader political direction under Prime Minister Andy Burnham, with the country's relationship with the European Union (EU), the future of pensions and social care, and immigration as three of the most closely watched issues.
The four-day gathering, which concluded Wednesday, was Burnham's first Labour conference as prime minister and party leader.
His main speech sought to move the government beyond short-term policy announcements and towards what he described as longer-term choices facing Britain, while ministers also used the conference to spell out new measures on public services, migration and refugee resettlement.
BRITAIN'S RELATIONSHIP WITH THE EU
Brexit returned to the center of Labour's political debate after Burnham said Britain's current post-Brexit settlement was no longer sufficient.
He told delegates that Brexit had "done more harm than good" and said the government would use an upcoming Britain-EU summit to begin setting out options for Britain's long-term relationship with its largest trading partner.
Those options could range from retaining the existing Trade and Cooperation Agreement to pursuing a customs union, closer participation in the single market, a new bespoke arrangement or eventually seeking to rejoin the EU.
The Financial Times on Wednesday noted that Burnham's intervention reopened a question that Labour had previously tried to contain through a more limited post-Brexit "reset."
Britain left the EU single market and customs union at the end of 2020, and relations are now governed principally by the Withdrawal Agreement and the Trade and Cooperation Agreement. Cooperation has expanded since the first UK-EU reset summit in 2025, particularly in security and selected economic areas, but existing arrangements still fall well short of membership of either the single market or customs union.
Ian Scott, a professor from the University of Manchester, told Xinhua that Burnham had long been sceptical of Brexit, but the practical options remained limited. A customs union arrangement would itself require negotiations and could face domestic criticism that Labour was attempting to return Britain to the EU "by the back door," he said.
Scott also cautioned that a full return to the EU would be considerably more complicated. He said it would most likely require another referendum and would depend on political attitudes inside both Britain and EU members, making any early return difficult to envisage.
MORE DOMESTIC AGENDA
Burnham also used the conference to link reform of the state pension to one of Labour's longest-running domestic policy ambitions: a National Care Service. The government said the existing pension triple lock would remain unchanged until April 2030, after which pensions would rise by at least inflation or 2.5 percent, with a mechanism designed to prevent them falling behind earnings over time.
Savings from the change would help finance a National Care Service in the next parliament, providing free personal care for older people according to need rather than the ability to pay.
The Institute for Fiscal Studies said on Tuesday that the revised formula would remove the costly "ratchet effect" of the existing triple lock, although savings to the Treasury were likely to be relatively modest in the first few years and grow over time.
Scott said the pension proposal was significant but should not simply be described as abolishing protection for pensioners, because an earnings backstop would remain. He said the political challenge would be to protect people relying almost entirely on the state pension while recognizing that many retirees also have occupational or private pensions.
John Bryson, an expert in economic geography at the University of Birmingham, told Xinhua that the wider question was whether Britain could afford substantial new commitments while public finances remained under pressure.
Increasing workforce participation, reducing welfare dependency and expanding the tax base should therefore form part of any assessment of new spending, he said.
Beyond care, Burnham also proposed greater public involvement in energy, water, housing and transport, including a new publicly backed GB Grid designed to invest in electricity networks.
Bryson said stronger government involvement in infrastructure could change how services are delivered, but would also raise an immediate question over where the required investment would come from.
IMMIGRATION AND REFUGEE RESETTLEMENT
Immigration remained another prominent issue, with Home Secretary Shabana Mahmood presenting Labour's approach as an attempt to combine tighter border control with limited safe and legal routes for refugees.
Mahmood announced the reopening of the UK Resettlement Scheme for new referrals. Around a quarter of referrals are expected to be Afghan women and girls and Palestinian refugees, with cases identified through the United Nations refugee agency and the International Refugee Assistance Project.
The government is also creating new sponsorship routes. Charities and non-profit organizations will be able to apply from October to sponsor refugees through community and student routes, with the first arrivals expected in autumn 2027, while applications for a work sponsorship route are due to open next spring.
Experts believe that the announcements reflect Labour's effort to draw a sharper distinction between irregular Channel crossings and refugees admitted through organized schemes.
Mahmood repeatedly stressed that safe routes would be capped and controlled, while the government continues enforcement measures aimed at smugglers and people entering Britain irregularly.
But recent trends are more complicated than headline figures alone suggest. Oxford University's Migration Observatory said in mid-September that net migration, foreign-worker arrivals and small-boat crossings had all declined, but noted that some of the fall in migration reflected policies introduced before Labour took office and that it remained difficult to isolate the effect of individual government measures. ■
