Sunday 3 December 2023

Labour's Brexit stance is unsustainable

Professor Sir John Curtice sparked off a debate among remainers with some surprising comments he made on a podcast for the i newspaper about Labour's position viz-a-viz Brexit. Starmer is adamant he will not rejoin the EU or the single market or the customs union (I think I'm right in that) but he will somehow 'make Brexit work' by getting closer to the EU and making trade easier. Curtice's comments are surprising to me not because he thinks Labour are wrong, although he does, but because he's usually far more circumspect in what he says about Brexit.

Here's the clip:

Curtice’s faultless logic is that, firstly, a ‘chunk’ (he doesn't say how big) of red wall leave voters who voted for BoJo in 2019 and now say they will vote Labour at the next GE have also changed their mind about Brexit. Secondly, the national 10% swing towards rejoining has also occurred in Labour voters, who are now MORE anti-Brexit than they were in 2019. And finally, the new younger voters who couldn’t vote in 2016 are overwhelmingly Labour supporters and vehemently anti-Brexit.

He didn't say it but also I think some hard-line pro-Brexit Labour voters have probably gone to the Reform Party as well. In short, Curtice thinks Starmer doesn't need to be so pro-Brexit and he could afford to take a far more conciliatory pro-EU position.

This has been helped by Rachel Wolf, co-author of the 2019 Tory manifesto, and adviser on Education and Innovation to Boris Johnson telling another podcast that "the UK could rejoin the European Union 'in some form' as a result of shifting geopolitical fault lines and changing attitudes among Brits."

These are telling interventions and signs that things could change very quickly. There is a head of water building up behind the dam. I read someone saying they can see the day coming when the only supporters of Brexit will be Jacob Rees-Mogg and the entire Labour Party!  He had a point.

So, there was a lot of speculation about the UK after 2024, most of it concerned with what Starmer might be able to propose by way of a special deal for the UK which didn't involve rejoining the EU, the SM or the CU or restarting Freedom of Movement.

Others are urging him to start making noises about how he would ‘make Brexit work’ - this being his favourite three-word slogan to describe Labour’s holding pattern. They want things like an SPS agreement and some sort of mobility chapter short of full FoM, perhaps closer security and cooperation.

Anand Menon from UK in a Changing Europe tweeted:

I'm with him. I really don't believe there is some finely negotiable position between being outside and being a full EU member that would satisfy this country. There might be such a position that would satisfy Starmer just like there was one that Cameron was reasonably happy with, in 2015. But is there one that would ever be sustainable under different political leaders for decades?  I don't believe it. 

As I have posted before, I honestly think Labour are infected with the same condition as the Tories under Cameron, May and Johnson. Of those three Johnson was, and this might be a shock, perhaps the most honest. The others, now joined by Starmer, thought there was some perfect Goldilocks position, neither too close nor too far away, that would suit Britain to a tee.

This is an utter fantasy.

I go back to the words of the German finance minister Wolfgang Schäuble in 2016 when he was quite clear about what Brexit meant. “In is in and out is out,” he said.

There are pros and cons of being in and pros and cons of being out of the EU. The idea that you could have a perfectly calibrated and sustainable mid-position where there is a perfect balance of pros and cons is just not realistic. And even if there was, and the EU were willing to accept it (highly unlikely), I do not believe it would last more than a year or two because things would inevitably change to upset the balance.

We can't, and the EU doesn't want to, keep negotiating endlessly to constantly adjust the balance. That is what they don't like about the 100 or so bilateral deals they have with Switzerland.

The only sensible positions are to be in or out. The UK cannot be a rule-taker in the single market as Menon points out, that is just not politically possible for the world's sixth-largest economy. We are slowly learning what life outside is really like and a big majority don't want it now.

And don't imagine these thoughts are taking place only in Labour ranks. Priti Patel spoke in the House of Commons last week calling on the government to reduce trade barriers:

She is coming under pressure I assume from exporters in her own constituency who have no doubt also experienced what Brexit actually means in practice.

So, the tide is starting to turn. The polls continue to show overwhelming support for rejoining (Curtice says 57-43%), the Tory party are tethered to the mast of Brexit and the Labour party is 75% pro-EU.

Is it time for Starmer to step up to the plate?  I think we are getting very close.

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