Can Andy Burnham mend fashion's broken bridge to Europe?

Andy Burnham entered Downing Street on Monday as the UK’s seventh prime minister in a decade. On the same morning, the fashion industry received a stark accounting of what those ten years have cost.

Exclusive wholesale data released by JOOR revealed how thoroughly the Brexit referendum rewired trade between UK and EU fashion businesses. EU retailers have cut UK brands from 17 percent of their total buy in 2017 to under 7 percent in 2025, with intra-EU sourcing filling the gap: the share of their investment going to EU brands rose from 54 percent to 69 percent over the same period. The retreat runs both ways. After the UK formally left the EU Customs Union at the end of 2020, UK retailers slashed the portion of their buy dedicated to EU brands from 51 percent to 29 percent by 2025.

UK brands on the platform grew sales 48 percent between 2017 and 2025, while brands outside the UK grew 129 percent. EU brands more than tripled their gross merchandise value in that time, yet the UK’s share of their transaction volume collapsed from 12 percent to under 4 percent. Cut off from its neighbors, UK fashion has turned inward: domestic retailers’ share of UK brand sales rose from 18 percent in 2021 to 23 percent in 2025.

The question now is whether the new prime minister intends to rebuild the bridge. The early signals are mixed.

Burnham has said he would like the UK to rejoin the EU within his lifetime, though he does not want to re-run the 2016 referendum, pledging a closer relationship with European countries and to consolidate progress on existing negotiations. A UK-EU summit scheduled for Wednesday has been postponed.

Markets hold their breath

Financial markets, for their part, are withholding judgment. Sterling is holding near a 13-month high against the euro and close to 1.35 dollars, with the FTSE 100 flat above 10,500 — calm that Nigel Green, CEO of advisory firm deVere Group, attributed to relief over the appointment of Shabana Mahmood, seen as the fiscally cautious choice rather than confidence in Burnham’s platform.

“They’re evidence that markets are waiting for detail. Burnham inherits a fiscal position where income tax, VAT and National Insurance are protected by manifesto pledges, which leaves wealth, capital gains and departing assets as the only meaningful levers left to pull. Anyone assuming today’s quiet trading means the danger has passed is reading the situation badly," Green said in a statement.

Green points to an estimated 16,500 millionaires leaving the UK in 2025. For UK fashion brands now more dependent on domestic customers than at any point since Brexit, a squeeze on home-market wealth would compound the European losses the JOOR data lays bare.

Home market

The British Retail Consortium, the trade association representing the bulk of the UK retail industry, marked Burnham's arrival with a manifesto, "Buy into Retail," urging the incoming prime minister to reform business rates, reduce the cost of employing young people and lower electricity costs, warning that a 6.5 billion pound rise in employment and National Insurance costs over the past two years is already weighing on jobs and investment across a sector that supports 2.8 million of them. "Cumulative costs and fragmented policy decisions are holding the industry back," said BRC chief executive Helen Dickinson in the statement.

Burberry also made its plea to Burnham, with CEO Joshua Schulman asking him to reinstate tax-free shopping for tourists, which was abolished ​at the start of 2021. "While we know the new PM has a busy agenda, we would hope that restoring London as the most important shopping capital this side ​of the Atlantic would be at the top of his list," said Schulman on Saturday, according to Reuters.

A decade of data shows what neglecting the European relationship costs. What the next decade looks like now depends on how the new prime minister ranks the asks piling up on his desk. During his first speech as PM on Monday, Burnham said this is "a moment for reflection and new resolution," adding that he will focus on regaining stability and promise to unveil a 10-year plan for Britain.