Now Andy Burnham suggests Brexit would not have happened if he was Labour leader in 2016

Andy Burnham has suggested Brexit might never have happened if he had been Labor leader a decade ago.

The Mayor of Manchester has said the 2016 referendum ‘could have turned out differently’ had he not lost to Jeremy Corbyn the year before.

The comments, made in an interview with the New Statesman, risk undermining Mr Burnham’s efforts to ignore previous calls for Britain to rejoin the EU.

These may fuel concerns in Labor circles that the former minister is indulging in his own hype.

Despite being in the middle of a tough by-election battle against Reform at Makerfield, Mr Burnham has made little secret of his intention to challenge Keir Starmer for No 10.

Asked about the consequences of failing to win the leadership in 2015, Mr Burnham said: ‘I mean, this is going to sound like a lot and I hesitate to say it, maybe I shouldn’t but I don’t know if 2016 would have turned out differently.

‘Something inside me was always saying: Look, I’m a Remainer, but we need to tell Cameron and Osborne that they really need to make some serious changes.

‘If I had been like that, would this have turned out a little differently…’

He added: ‘My other half doesn’t give me much credit in politics, he’s my fiercest man – not a critic but almost a challenger – and he thinks he might be, yes. He says maybe it would have been different.’

Mr Corbyn was widely seen as having an ambivalent approach to the EU, although he insisted he voted to remain.

Mr Burnham suggested Britain could send a more ‘patriotic’ message about the virtues of membership by citing its history of defending Europe against right-wing politics and fascism.

But he complained that his former Cabinet colleague Alan Johnson and others were ‘not interested’ in anything related to the financial impact of Brexit.

‘In 2016 I was the shadow home secretary instead of the leader and I made a speech on the patriotism cause… I remember trying to persuade Remain and the Remain campaign at the time to say “this is what you have to fight for” and not this sort of cold, financial, “you’ll be better off with this much money” thing that they were doing.

‘I remember Alan Johnson and others saying, ‘No, we’re not interested, that’s not what we do.’

Mr Burnham insisted he was not pushing to rejoin the EU anytime soon as he battled to win a constituency that voted heavily for Brexit.

Labor insiders expressed concern at signs of arrogance coming from Mr Burnham’s camp and his allies were said to be immediately ‘engaged in war games’ general election and form a fantastic Cabinet.

This week Makerfield unveiled its own logo for the campaign; The only poll so far suggests the outcome is too close to call.

It bears a clenched fist and the message: ‘Change your workforce, keep the faith’.

In keeping with Mr Burnham’s ‘King of the North’ style, it is based on the symbol of the Northern Soul musical movement.

The image, which is expected to be used on beer coasters, was derided by one MP for looking ‘like it was designed by a local branch of the Socialist Workers Student Union in the early 1990s’.