The most remarkable thing for me about Andy Burnham’s first address to the House of Commons as Prime Minister this week was his mention of the B-word.

Even James O’Brien, the wise, witty and unmissable LBC radio host (and columnist for this paper) has had to wearily admit defeat and limit himself to just a few mentions of Brexit every week. It has become the thing that is not to be spoken of, a bit like Harry Potter’s nemesis Voldemort.

Keir Starmer treated the whole subject like an embarrassing smell that was always present, but never talked about. But then Burnham called Brexit out for what it is: a “wrong turn” and the root of most of our economic ills and low growth.

It’s worth remembering that, according to a report from Logistics UK, Brexit has lost us an estimated £11.7bn in exports every single year – that equates to £400 a household. Think of what could be done with such an enormous sum of money, especially when so many are struggling with basic food and fuel bills.

As if that wasn’t enough of a wake-up call, an eye-watering 98.2 per cent of British businesses have said they want to rejoin the single market, according to research from European Movement UK. These are astonishing figures and I think they should be repeated as often as possible. Which is why it was so important that Burnham stood on his hind legs and opined that Brexit brought “a decade of low growth and stalled regeneration”.

Here’s another thing. According to a new YouGov poll, 55 per cent of us agreed with the PM’s assessment that Brexit was a “wrong........

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