Labour and Brexit


Maybe Labour should think the unthinkable and conditionally agree to support the proposed withdrawal agreement,  if only to avoid a General Election completely focused on Brexit, which wouldn’t necessarily go well for us ?

What conditions ?

-a place/ places in the negotiating team for the ongoing discussions about the future relationship with the EU

- an emergency spending programme for the period of negotiations, to prop up public services and to crank up the transition to a no carbon economy ( as outlined in the Green Transition document  https://www.labour.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2018/09/The-Green-Transformation-.pdf  )   

In the likely event that such an offer is rejected then Labour would participate in voting the deal down, on the basis that it has no confidence in the Tories negotiating a satisfactory long term settlement on their own. Labour would be likely to defeat the government  in an uncomfortable alliance with Tory Brexiteers ,the SNP and angry Ulster Unionists, and could attempt to fight the subsequent likely General Election on wider ground than simply ‘in’ or ‘out’ .

“This half-baked Brexit deal fails Labour’s six tests, will be a disaster for our country and puts jobs, right and living standards at risk”

The above is from a Momentum sponsored petition which demands that all Labour MPs vote against The PM’s Deal.

How exactly would such a deal be a disaster? 

The threadbare political statement  is fairly irrelevant and doesn’t commit a future Labour government to anything .Only the withdrawal agreement is legally binding . It contains three essential points :

1) Permanent protection for existing  EU nationals living in the UK  and UK expats currently living in the EU or arriving/departing up until the end of 2020 . What happens to future expats and future EU nationals is still subject to future negotiation. 

2) A sum of money (£39 billion)  to cover outstanding obligations. 

3) Northern Ireland will effectively remain in the single market even if the rest of the UK eventually leaves, to protect the Good Friday Peace Agreement and to avoid a ‘hard border’ .This will have the consequence that the Northern Ireland border will remain open to EU nationals, making it extremely problematic for the UK to stop EU nationals entering the rest of the UK - undermining the ‘controlling immigration’ promise being made by Brexiteers. 

Are any of the above a problem for Labour ? Indeed don’t we welcome points 1 and 3 and accept point 2 as inevitable and reasonable ?


It was never expected that a full agreement for future relations and arrangements would be in place by March 2019. If Labour are pretending this is not the case then I fear we will lose 
credibility.

 What else do we need before the end of March, given that there isn’t going to be, and no-one expects, a full agreement to be in place ? 

Labour arguing for a second referendum in the hope of reversing Brexit is a coherent position although it would be politically difficult and have no guarantee of being successful. What is far from coherent is an argument suggesting we can get a better withdrawal agreement and expecting to achieve this via a general election.

It would be far better if we had a Labour representative ( Keir Starmer ?) as part the negotiation team and this would be popular with that part of the electorate who are fed up with party politics. The PM is unlikely to agree to this, or to a programme of spending on public services and climate change mitigation in return for Labour supporting her withdrawal agreement. She  is likely to have to resign if she can’t get her withdrawal agreement through Parliament. If Labour has been seen to have  behaved reasonably ( “ we can delay the final terms of the Brexit agreement but we can’t delay emergency spending on public services and climate change mitigation “) then it will be to our advantage and also the right thing to do. It might even resonate among the electorates elsewhere in the EU and open up the required debate about ‘ Another Europe is Possible ‘ .

As a first step Labour  should be referencing the recent press release by the EU Commission which expresses the hope ( without providing any strategy ! ) that the EU can be carbon neutral by 2050. Not only might Labour say that it will commit to this target whether in the EU or not but that it is already developing plans to make such a transition, as set out in its Green Transformation document about which I have been so enthusiastic 

The EU Press Release is here


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