Cabinet minister Lisa Nandy has suggested there are downsides to closer relations with the European Union.

Speaking to the BBC, Nandy said she acknowledged there were “trade-offs” from boosting trade with the EU. 

The culture secretary, who has a brief overseeing digital and telecommunications sectors, said she did not want to “cut people out of that conversation”. 

“There are trade-offs to be made,” Nandy told the BBC. 

“The only thing that I think the British people are absolutely united on right now is that we left the European Union a decade ago with the promise of a close Brexit deal and the promise of benefits from that deal, and most of those have not been realised.

“It’s not working for people across this country, and we’ve got to do better.”

Her responses came in response to questions about whether there would be a cap on the number of Europeans who would come to Britain under a youth mobility scheme. 

No ‘cherry-picking’ in EU relations

A debate over the terms of negotiations has erupted after Andy Burnham re-iterated he wanted the UK to rejoin the EU in his lifetime. 

Michel Barnier, the former Brexit negotiator for the EU who was later prime minister of France for a short period of time, said the UK would need to accept free movement in order to get further trade access. 

“There is no cherry picking,” he said.

“There will be no possibility to have one freedom and not the other. The four freedoms [of goods, movement of people, services and capital] are clearly the four conditions to be inside the single market.”

Reports have suggested that Sir Keir Starmer was considering a security and customs union framework in negotiations before resigning as Prime Minister in the summer. 

Burnham will meet EU leaders in Dublin this week while a UK-EU summit is scheduled for 20 November. Leaders are expected to sign off deals on energy markets and food standards. 

Reform UK’s Nigel Farage and the Conservatives have hit out at the government over its plans to push ahead with moving closer to the EU, potentially even crossing so-called “red lines” on not joining the customs union or single market in the Labour manifesto from 2024.