
There is no such thing as a ‘Labour Brexit’
It’s been just over three weeks since the vote on the Government’s legislative programme and the Queen’s Speech passed by a thin majority, with MPs from the Democratic Unionist Party finally getting into line and backing the Conservative Minority Government. More of note, however, was the ammendment laid down by Labour MP Chuka Umuna, which would change the Government’s negotiating position and ensure that the UK would stay within both the Single Market (EEA) and the Customs Union after our departure from the European Union.
In the end, this amendment would have always been placed — whether it by a Liberal Democrat, Green or Plaid Cymru MP; but Umuna’s tabling of the amendment was against the spirit of unity that the Labour Party had apparently built since the shock election result a few weeks before. Despite pleas from the leadership and others within the Parliamentary Labour Party to withdraw the amendment, Umuna went ahead, with 50 Labour MPs — including six front-benchers — defying the Labour whip to vote for it alongside the SNP, Lib Dems, Plaid Cymru and the Greens’ Caroline Lucas. It highlighted further that Labour is a deeply divided party when it comes to Brexit, and that any strategy will upset some contingent of the PLP.
Those divisions rose again this week, at the beginning of the summer recess, when Labour’s Shadow International Trade Secretary Barry Gardiner wrote in The Guardian that “Brexit means laving the single market and customs union”. His piece was clearly a thinly-veiled defence of Jeremy Corbyn’s interview on Sunday’s Andrew Marr Show, when he insisted that a Labour Government would ensure that the UK left both the EEA and the Customs Union. Heidi Alexander — Labour’s former Shadow Health Secretary — disagrees, and wrote very critically of her party’s leadership, in a follow up to Gardiner’s piece.


Both Alexander and Gardiner have clearly defined positions on Brexit, and we should only look at Corbyn’s parliamentary voting history to see that he is an arch-Eurosceptic who doesn’t believe we can have his vision of socialism and be inside the European Union’s institutions. But this means that while Corbyn leads a party that contains himself, Gardiner, and both key Brexiteer Kate Hoey and arch-remainers Chuka Umuna and Heidi Alexander the idea of a ‘Labour Brexit’ is a fantasy. Yes, the Conservatives have Anna Soubry who continually speaks up for the single market, but she has never voted against her Party on a major vote; while other Tory remainers have come around to Theresa May’s Lancaster House speech and its principles, offering little destraction to the Prime Minister’s plans, even after that election result.
Of course that election forced the Labour Party and Leadership to pin its colours to a position on Brexit in its manifesto, and that is what we got, on some level. The manifesto was clear in that Labour would leave the single market; Freedom of Movement would end to bring in immigration controls, something that cannot be done within the EEA. The rest of the manifesto was full of slogans: “jobs first Brexit”, being the key one. The issue is a “jobs first Brexit” is often what people use to mean retaining the EEA, and that slogan was being used alongside a de facto pledge (though it is now confirmed by Corbyn as solid Labour policy)to leave the EEA. It’s hardly surprising when the Conservatives claim Labour have no policy on Brexit, beacause on many levels, they do not.
Labour have publicisied its key tests for May’s Brexit deal, with a key one being the outcome ensuring unfettered access to European markets and the same economic benefits as EU membership. The UK cannot have the same economic benefits as EU membership without being an EU member — something the British electorate categorically rejected last June. Labour’s key tests are set to fail, not set to pass, and only remaining in the EU will count as a pass for Theresa May. That’s despite the Labour Leaders’ policy being vastly in line to Government policy; no single market membership, no customs union; a bespoke free trade deal.
Labour also have no alternative to the Conservatives’ ‘Great Repal Bill’ — now called the much less flashy European Union (Withdrawl) Bill. Despite that, Labour have promised to block and frustrate it at every turn, though perhaps they have a point with their insistence on the adoption of the European Union’s standard rights – or, perhaps, would do if Britain didn’t already have much higher standard workers’ rights provisions. Labour have also raised no alternative agriculture or fisheries Bills, despite running the Welsh Government which is in charge of those areas in Wales.
As Brexit gets closer, while the Government struggles with a plan for Brexit, and the Hung Parliament makes it even harder for the Prime Minister, Labour have yet to get off the starting blocks. If Labour want to act like a Government in waiting, they should begin to show some unity on the biggest issue facing the United Kingdom for generations. And if they want to convince us there is a ‘Labour Brexit’, they need to come up with some idea themselves of what that would look like.
