A Westminster Hall Debate on Monday, October 12, will discuss the UK’s application to join the EU, triggered by a that gathered 111,687 signatures earlier this year. It is the first chance our parliamentarians will have to discuss the options that Andy Burnham opened the door to in the closing minutes of his speech to conference.

For years, Labour MPs have loyally trotted out the red lines: that there will be no return to the single market, customs union or, whisper it, to EU membership. Being generous, the rationale for this Ming vase-style method stemmed from a fear of handing Reform UK a gift in Leave-voting seats.

But all along the fear was trained on the wrong target. Labour isn’t losing these seats because Reform UK is winning over Labour voters, it’s losing them because the party’s own 2024 coalition has scattered, to the Greens, Lib Dems, SNP, Plaid Cymru, and transformed into non-voters, with Reform UK reaping the rewards and coming through the middle. Being cautious on Europe exacerbates precisely this danger.

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Best for Britain’s 13,433-person YouGov MRP, a manifesto pledge to rejoin the EU doubled Labour’s vote share from 18 percent to 37 percent, putting it 11 points clear of Reform UK, while Reform UK’s vote share didn’t move. A bolder offer on Europe doesn’t drive anyone into the right’s arms, but locks Farage out of Downing Street, and makes Labour the largest party with 321 seats, just shy of the 326 needed for an outright majority. Under this scenario there are a further 43 seats where Labour is either tied with Reform UK or trailing by four points or fewer. Winning those, takes Labour’s ceiling to 369, comfortably over the line. That’s the difference between a Burnham coalition and a Burnham majority.

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Those 43 seats include constituencies like Erewash, where an EU membership offer narrows the gap between Labour and Reform UK to just one percent. It’s Mike Tapp’s Dover and Deal where he’d be just three percent behind the Reform UK candidate, as well as Scottish seats like Inverclyde and Renfrewshire West and Stirling and Strathallan where the gap would close on the SNP to less than three percent. Every Labour MP who stays silent out on EU membership out of fear of Farage should look at the list of 43 seats. Several of their colleagues who would be set to gain the most from a bolder line are the ones most nervous about it.

Halfway house manifesto pledges, like the customs union and single market, puts Labour on just 256 seats, on central estimates, with a messy three-party coalition required to take power. A manifesto commitment on the current approach of generic ‘closer relations’ leaves the party with just 136 seats and a Farage-led coalition that should frighten us all.

found that the single market and customs union were the least popular of all the options tested, less popular even than the status quo. Voters respond to a clear, simple offer, not a technocratic compromise that is easy to attack on sovereignty grounds. As a rule-taker, not a rule-maker, we’d be the only G7 country in the single market with no say over the regulations British business would abide by, and with no British judges on EU courts arbitrating on trade disputes. It’s unsurprising that voters aren’t keen and instead have a strong preference for membership and the rule-making rights that give us more, not less, sovereignty, and accompany the obligations.

MPs rarely attend these debates en masse, but now Andy Burnham has opened the door to EU membership, this session offers a chance for our political class to catch up with where voters have long been. Labour can lose cautiously or win boldly. Pulling back from Europe to keep Reform UK out is the surest way to let Farage in.

It’s time to go big, or go home.

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