Reeves to champion closer EU ties in Harvard speech that shaped Burnham's economic agenda

Rachel Reeves, the former chancellor, will use a speech at Harvard on Monday to defend her record and argue that Britain's future lies in a closer relationship with the European Union, in her first public intervention on her own record and on the country's direction since leaving government.

The address, wisely left until after her successor John Healey delivered his first budget, will examine how governments can meet the public's appetite for radicalism while maintaining credibility with financial markets. Reeves will argue that pursuing a closer relationship with the EU, even rejoining, may be credible as well as radical.

"Economic interests, common values and basic geographical reality all point towards Europe," Reeves will say, adding that no one in government could "be in any doubt" about her view on the damage of Brexit or her belief that the UK should one day return to the EU fold. "Economically, it is the credible choice. Britain's values, and a serious assessment of the geopolitical scene today, tell us it is the radical choice too," she will say.

Reeves will give Prime Minister Andy Burnham "credit for his willingness to face reality head on". Burnham has been the torchbearer for thinking the unthinkable on Brexit since taking office, but it was Reeves who argued in a lecture six months ago that "Brexit did deep damage" and that the government sought "not to turn back the clock but to look toward a new and stable, future relationship".

The Treasury, where the blueprints for the Remain campaign's "Project Fear" were drawn up, has long been the heart of pro-European sentiment in government, and Reeves was its biggest champion under Keir Starmer. Her outlook now appears more aligned with Burnham, who cast her out of government, than with Healey, who has joked about his own age when asked whether the UK would rejoin the EU in his lifetime, saying it was his job to "try and make the most of Britain's position now".

Within Westminster, some MPs are saying in more than whispers that they judged Reeves's legacy and influence too harshly. At Healey's first outing at the International Monetary Fund in Bangkok, the fund's economists lavished praise on his predecessor, saying the UK's deficit reduction plan "stands out" among G7 peers.

The themes of Reeves's earlier lecture have largely become the agenda of Burnham's government. The MP for Leeds West and Pudsey argued that what most distinguishes Britain from its closest peers is the relative underperformance of its major cities outside London compared with their European counterparts, and said the north of England had "waited for far too long, for a government that matches warm words with concerted ambition". Her call to "liberate our regions from stifling Whitehall orthodoxies", backed by a plan to give regional leaders a share of national taxes long allocated by central government, now forms the centrepiece of Healey's budget.

Reeves's main theory of growth was investment, pursued by raising employers' national insurance. Those unpopular tax rises signalled a government willing to make hard choices, and the fiscal rules were changed to allow a multi-year commitment to an eventual £100bn in new capital spending, money now beginning to flow into NHS infrastructure, roads, housing, rail upgrades and energy and industrial projects. Reeves will argue that the shift to an investment-led growth model "required sacrifices" that a Starmer-led government failed to persuade the public to back, saying: "The challenge is to make the politics and economics, those dual tests of credibility and radicalism, line up."

She will not say, although others have, that much of the problem with Starmer's government was the man himself rather than the agenda. If Burnham avoids an early election, he may see some of that investment bear fruit in public and market confidence, and much could still derail it, not least further international turmoil. But when his government counts its successes on public services, Europe, devolution and growth, Reeves will be able to claim a share of the credit.