David Cameron makes bombshell Brexit statement as Andy Burnham plots surrender deal

Former prime minister David Cameron has said the UK should not become part of the EU. He also warned Andy Burnham that starting a conversation about rejoining would be “very long and painful”.

In an interview on Wednesday, the former foreign secretary said: "I don’t think actually necessarily joining a customs union is the right answer. If you look at the economic problems we have today, I don’t really think they’ve got anything to do with Brexit at all. "I mean, our economic problems are we are overspending, over-borrowing, over-taxing, over-regulated, and far too much being spent on working age welfare. Those are a set of problems that have nothing to do with Brexit."

Mr Burnham has spoken extensively about his desire to build closer ties between Britain and the EU, and has not ruled out the possibility of Brexit eventually being overturned.

Lord Cameron's intervention comes days before a crunch UK-EU summit on November 20 in Brussels. Mr Burnham has made closer ties with the EU a key priority of his premiership.

Speaking to Bloomberg, he said: "Today, instead of launching an argument about rejoining, which I think would be a very long and painful argument, and who knows where it would end up, instead of that, focus on how do we be the best friend, best neighbour, best partner. If you start endlessly producing this idea that we’re actually on a path to rejoining, I think you’re in danger of getting a less good partnership deal because, of course, the EU countries will just think: well, these guys are gonna rejoin anyway, so what’s the point in giving them a good partnership deal.

"If you’re not going to commit to trying to make the partnership stronger because you’re flirting with rejoining, I think there’s some dangers there."

We need a government that actually gets spending under control, gets taxes down, helps entrepreneurs, deals with our borrowing problem, reforms the welfare, and massively deregulates so we can build houses, build infrastructure. None of those have got anything to do with Europe.

"So that’s sort of, in a way, that’s my point. Do we really want to go into another decade-long debate about whether we should be in or out, when actually we should deal with our own problems while making the partnership model work?”

Lord Cameron's final months in Downing Street were dominated by his attempts to negotiate a new deal with the EU on the terms of the UK's membership.

He then put that deal to the country in a referendum and recommended that voters back remaining in the Bloc.

But the Leave campaign won by 52% to 48% and Lord Cameron quit No.10 the following day.

Lord Cameron said: “I fought the campaign to stay in on an amended basis, and I obviously wanted to win that campaign. I was desperately disappointed that we lost that campaign. But I’m a democrat, a believer in democracy."

The Daily Express Give Us A Proper Brexit crusade has called for Britain to leave the European Convention on Human Rights, slash red tape for businesses and enforce a 12-mile exclusion zone around the UK for British vessels only.