The incoming prime minister should treat electoral reform not as a separate constitutional project, but as the precondition for any lasting settlement with Europe
A decade after the UK public voted to leave the European Union, Britain appears to be on the cusp of pivotal change both in its approach to the EU and its electoral system. On 22 June 2026, Keir Starmer announced his resignation as Prime Minister and Leader of the Labour Party. That same day, his expected successor, Andy Burnham, was sworn in as MP for Makerfield. Fittingly, Burnham, as a consistently pro-EU voice within Labour, will inherit and deepen Starmer’s rapprochement efforts with the bloc.
Still, the more momentum Burnham can build towards improving UK-EU relations, the more he exposes a problem that no amount of goodwill among EU policymakers could resolve: under the current first-past-the-post (FPTP) electoral system, everything Burnham could negotiate may be unpicked by a Eurosceptic government that a minority of the electorate put into office. Because FPTP has increasingly awarded lopsided parliamentary majorities to parties that did not win the national popular vote, Burnham should pitch the reset and implementation of proportional representation (PR) in parliament as two sides of the same task. Such efforts should be presented as the country taking back control of its own politics while rebuilding its standing with the rest of the continent. Proportional representation, supported both by Burnham and by two-thirds of Labour’s membership, would offer more durability in future UK-EU agreements, strengthen the UK’s hand in negotiations, and pre-empt some complaints from the “take back control” crowd.
EU policymakers are already alert to the risk of Britain withdrawing from any emerging deals with them. With Reform UK leading national polling at roughly 27 per cent and an electoral system that gave Labour its supermajority in 2024 with a mere 34 per cent plurality, there is a high chance that FPTP will once again manufacture a parliamentary majority for the hard Eurosceptics. Consequently, EU leaders are reportedly weighing whether to write penalty clauses into prospective arrangements to ensure that a withdrawing Britain would owe compensation for walking away.
Such provisions, however, inherently cap the depth of cooperation that either side is willing to consider, as both must assume that a Eurosceptic parliamentary majority could be conjured without a majority of the popular vote at the next UK general election. Moreover, a contractual penalty cannot guarantee that the UK government will not lurch from Europhile to Eurosceptic on the strength of a simple parliamentary plurality either.
The lack of a medium- to long-term British stance towards the EU is what continually weakens the UK’s position at the negotiating table. The EU is understandably wary of countries that may not keep their word, constraining the terms of cooperation to insulate itself from the possible future reneging of an unreliable partner. Such unpredictability would be much rarer in a PR-based UK electoral system, as no single party can seize total power on a lacklustre electoral performance like winning only a third of the popular vote.
Indeed, the EU is much more likely to offer its best and most durable terms to those which are more consistent, even if those countries tend to take cooler views of them. For instance, countries like Switzerland and Norway have relatively stable approaches to the EU, which enable them to negotiate comprehensive arrangements with the bloc without becoming full members. In other words, PR would strengthen Britain’s negotiating posture by ensuring more reliability and continuity from succeeding governments, effectively lending more credibility to any commitments it makes with the EU.
Beyond the negotiating table itself, Burnham could even use this two-pronged approach to reclaim the most potent slogan of the Brexit era. “Take back control” was sold as a promise of sovereignty restored to the British people from undemocratic EU processes dominated by uncaring Eurocrats. In truth, FPTP ironically reproduces at home the very democratic deficit that Eurosceptics blamed on Brussels because of how it concentrates sweeping power in the hands of parties that most voters actively rejected.
In contrast, PR would deliver on this promise by returning control to the electorate rather than to whichever political bloc the electoral system happens to over-reward. It would even demonstrate that a genuinely representative democracy and a productive relationship with Europe are not in tension as well.
However, none of this comes without political cost, and Burnham should be candid about it. Under PR, Reform would still win substantial representation, because its support is real. As problematic as its principles may be, a fair electoral system should still reflect that.
A sizeable Reform contingent in the Commons would undeniably complicate UK-EU negotiations. Yet, the objection that implementing PR would empower Reform simply fails to recognise how FPTP could convert Reform’s plurality into an outright parliamentary majority, which would enable it to demolish the settlement single-handedly. Instead, PR would give Reform enough of a voice to make talks harder but not enough to wreck the relationship on its own. This is a risk worth running, both because the alternative is plainly worse and because, quite simply, electoral reform is how the people can take back control.
Finally, when it comes to implementation, Burnham will have the ideal instrument for the job. The Cabinet Office-based Minister for the Constitution and European Union Relations fuses oversight of both constitutional reform and UK-EU relations into a single position. Although this position prioritised the UK-EU reset negotiations over constitutional and electoral reform under the Starmer ministry, Burnham must not make the same mistake with whoever has this post in his ministry. As the coordination of improving UK-EU relations and electoral reform is already embedded in the machinery of government through this very post, Burnham can ensure that Britain’s European policy and its democratic renewal advance in tandem, each lending the other a legitimacy it could not earn alone.
Under these circumstances, Burnham must recognise the historic opportunity before him. If he treats rapprochement and electoral reform as a single project rather than two competing priorities, he can become the first Prime Minister since the Brexit referendum to pair a mandate for mending EU relations with PR reform, thereby building a European policy that outlasts his premiership and a parliamentary democracy finally worthy of the slogan once used to push for Britain to leave.