How Labour can avoid a one-term disaster: a Brexit and PR roadmap

Britain is at a crossroads. The next general election may determine the fate of the country for decades to come. But Labour face a daunting challenge. They must undo the damage caused by the Tories and Brexit, while facing a hostile media and a volatile electorate. In this piece, I argue that Labour need to adopt a new approach to Brexit, one that does not rule out closer ties with the EU or even rejoining. I also explain the need to introduce PR as the only way to ensure long-term stability and progressive change. Without adopting these twin steps, Labour are at real risk of being a one-term wonder.

Here’s a step-by-step look at how the future is likely to play out, unless Labour substantially up their game…

1. The Tories will wreck things at a faster and faster pace as we get nearer to the next general election

If this statement seems implausible, you haven’t been paying attention these last 13 years.

Why are the Tories likely to behave this way?

• It stores up bigger and bigger problems for Labour — remember this for later
• It’s their last chance to funnel cash to friends and cronies
• It’s their last chance to feather their nests before they’re out of power (and, for many, also out of office)
• The more chaotic things become, the less likely it is that any given scandal gets investigated in depth
• It increases the probability that some of their changes will survive a full election cycle
• Some (but by no means a majority) derive vicarious pleasure from upsetting the “woke Remain establishment”. For them, that’s reason enough to make destructive changes. You can see that reflected in their choice of policies designed to fan the culture wars.

From a Tory POV, the best stuff to break is anything unfixable. For example, the closure of ticket offices across the rail network. Once they become coffee concessions, and their staff get redeployed, it’s game over. Across Britain, thousands of years of accumulated expertise will disappear forever. There will be neither the knowledge nor the physical space to reverse the changes in future.

2. Regardless of their actual policies, Labour will win the next election

A huge number of people want to Get the Tories Out, and will vote on that basis no matter what’s on offer. That’s great for Labour, but only for one election cycle. (We will come back to this crucial point later.)

Once in power, their manifesto commitments will constrain what they can do. The Tories, by contrast, will have free rein.

You see, the GE grants the losing party a blank slate. The electorate thumbed their noses at what they were offered. That lets the losers get away with binning their manifesto and starting over. (“Nobody liked what we were selling, so we’re adopting a different approach.”)

The winning party don’t have the same flexibility. Throughout history, pledges get broken, and commitments forgotten. But the broad strokes of the winner’s manifesto will still limit the extent of what they can and cannot do in power. This is especially true of headline policy issues such as Brexit.

3. Labour will start trying to fix the stuff the Tories broke

This will prove slow going, and very expensive. It’s alway much harder and much more expensive to mend stuff than it is to break it in the first place. That would be true no matter whose party’s policies were being unwound.

But Labour have a huge problem that the Tories don’t. They’re trapped by the need to be “fiscally responsible” at all times in a way the Tories never were.

Why? Simple: British media is not a level political playing field. Our majority RW press will pounce on Labour if they spend as much as a brass penny without accounting for it.

It’s an unfair situation. There’s no denying that it is. But it’s also reality — a known known, if you like. It’s pointless moaning about it. It’s no good trying to ignore it. Labour must find ways to win, and win repeatedly, despite being hobbled by the press.

(NOTE: If you don’t read the RW tabloids, you may not realise that they attack Labour on a daily basis even today. That’s despite the fact Labour haven’t had a sniff of power for 13 years. You can imagine how much more virulent their attacks will become once Labour is in power.)

4. Labour will try to Make Brexit Work

As a result, you might expect the RW tabloids to pick up the intensity of their attacks. And they will. But their own past and present actions constrain the potential future limits of their rage.

You see, they misrepresent Labour’s Brexit position on a daily basis even today. That may well explain why only 16% of people in a recent Redfield & Wilton survey were aware of Labour’s actual Brexit position. In contrast, a huge 41% think that Labour’s current policy is to rejoin the EU. (Would that it were so.)

In short: the tabloids will paint Labour as Brexit betrayers no matter what they do. So Labour might as well take huge lumbering steps rather than teeny tiny ones.

5. Make Brexit Work won’t. Work, that is.

You might as well try to put the toothpaste back in the tube after you’ve brushed your teeth with it. Brexit is inherently unworkable by nature. We cannot replicate what we had inside the EU while outside it. (Remember Labour’s 6 Brexit tests? They appear to have forgotten them all.)

Some observations:

• Small incremental improvements will never appease Rejoiners.
• Even a hint of closer ties with the EU will infuriate some still-Leavers. (Others, more pragmatic, will wait and see what the results are.)
• The number of still-Leavers continues to decline every day, courtesy of the lived experience of Brexit, and the inevitable consequence of the passage of time.
• A June 2023 Public First poll on behalf of the Sun newspaper found that if the referendum were re-run, Remain would win by 64% to 36%, and that 88% of Leave voters feel Brexit has gone badly.
• A May 2023 Yougov poll found that the number of Leave voters saying that Brexit was the right choice had fallen to 65%, the lowest to date.
• A May 2023 Savanta poll for ITV’s Peston found that 86% of young voters aged 18–25 would vote to rejoin the EU in another referendum. (That’s the cohort who were too young to vote in 2016.) By the time we get to the end of a first Labour term, nobody under 32 will have voted for Brexit.
• There will always be a core group of Leavers who will continue to believe Brexit could have worked. That will always be true, no matter what forms of Brexit are attempted. Since Brexit is unworkable, these voters will never be satisfied.
• The only way to undo our Brexit problems is to make major changes of the sort Labour ruled out (“no to SM/CU/FoM/Rejoin”)

The introduction of the ETIAS/EES for travellers going to the EU, expected in 2024, is likely to focus hearts and minds further on the damage Brexit is causing, because long queues and travel chaos are impossible to hide. (I summarised the changes as best I could in the table below.)

Eurostar have already cut back on the number of services they operate because they can’t process passports quickly enough to fill trains. The rollout of these two systems has the potential to reduce services further. It’s also the stated reason for the cancellation of the direct ski train to the Alps.

More broadly, Brexit damage is likely to increase over time. It will continue to be a drag on the UK economy. As well as all the current problems of Brexit, we will begin to experience new ones. (Not least because many temporary mitigations will expire.)

Some examples:

• The rollout of incoming border checks, expected in stages from October 2023. This will reduce the range of goods in shops and raise prices further.
• The parallel UK REACH certification regime will mean that firms which use chemicals will have to certify them twice, once in the UK and once in the EU.
• The introduction of UKCA marks will require firms to go through multiple certification processes and amend their packaging in order to keep selling in both the UK and the EU markets.
• The Windsor Framework will require packages to be marked “Not for EU” for them to be sold in NI, something that many supermarkets have already said they’re not prepared to do for cost and complexity reasons.

As more and more damage from Brexit becomes apparent, more and more people will be convinced that Brexit was a bad idea.

6. Labour will have to spend more and more money to stop things falling apart

The legacy of Tory underinvestment has played havoc with our already fragile infrastructure. Think leaky sewers and water pipes, collapsing schools and crumbling hospitals. (Privatised firms, by contrast, have generally done very well indeed.)

Where’s the money going to come from to pay for everything that needs fixing? That’s what every journalist on the Right will demand of Labour, again and again.

7. Tory MPs will sit on the sidelines laughing and jeering: “Typical Labour, always spending money they don’t have.”

They will point to every broken thing and claim it’s all Labour’s fault. The RW media will be in lockstep, amplifying the message. Consider that people like Greg Hands still talk about the “no money” letter after 13 years. It’s easy to imagine how things will play out.

As we approach the GE after next, the Tories and the RW press will step up their attacks further. “Same old Labour. Can’t trust them with the economy. Can’t get anything working. Can’t even fix Brexit, despite all their lofty promises.”

With luck, Labour will go into the GE after next with the situation in Britain better than when they took office. But it won’t be that much better. The depth and breadth of the problems they were left will see to that. We’ll only be knee-deep in metaphoric (and maybe literal) sewage, rather than thigh-deep. But that’s still pretty stinky.

8. GE2: Electric Boogaloo

This is the big one. This is where the wheels come off for Labour. The bright red Brexit lines they spent so much energy painting will bite them like a rabid crocodile.

You see, Labour are stuck. The taunts about the failure of their flagship Make Brexit Work policy will hit home. Why? Because they’re true. And because the process will have irritated everyone across the Remain/Leave spectrum. That lubricates the way for all the lies the Tories/RW media will spin to slip down like honey.

But if Labour pivot to “rejoin SM/CU/EU” to win GE2, they give the game away. They might as well tattoo “We wasted the last 5 years. We prolonged the Brexit damage. All because we didn’t know what they hell we were doing.” on their foreheads.

They may well pivot anyway. The alternative is even more unthinkable.

And if they do, the press will scream “U-turn”, and again they’ll be completely right. It will be a U-turn big enough to be visible from space. (Consider the difference between changing stance now, a year before GE1, and doing so after 5 years of Make Brexit Work.)

Think back to where we started, a long long way up the page. Remember when I said there’s no Get the Tories Out vote.

That will prove critical in GE2. People who voted Labour once through gritted teeth to GTTO won’t do so again. Not when Labour didn’t do what they wanted on issues such as Brexit and PR. (PR is a huge deal which we will explore in a bit.)

And what will the Tories do? Already, we have people like Tobias Ellwood decrying the problems caused by Brexit. And Brexiters like George Eustice admitting it has hurt the labour market. What will the Tories do to get their hands back on those sweet, sweet levers of power? Especially if a drubbing in GE1 clears out most of the headbanger Brexiters.

Think back a few years, to the days of Rory Stewart and Anna Soubry and Heidi Allen. Back then, there were many moderate Tories, even though they were in the minority. A devastated Conservative party may decide the quickest way back to power is to pivot back to the centre. Remember, they aren’t constrained by anything they promised in GE1. They lost. Their manifesto was so much chipwrap the day after.

9. Labour lose GE2

They’re a one-term wonder, and then they’re done. Sunk by their Brexit maximalism, and by the impossible cleanup task the Tories left them.

The Tories do what they do best: sweep into office, and blame everything on Labour. Five years is a long time for an electorate with short attention spans. Especially one conditioned by decades of RW media lies into believing Labour can’t be trusted with the economy.

BTW, from the standpoint of history, being PM is 100x more important than being Leader of the Opposition. A place in posterity for eternity is the grand prize. It’s the one thing even rich people can’t buy, though their wealth can certainly help them secure it. Heck, schoolkids will still be talking about Liz Truss a century from now. (What a dreadful thought.) If Keir Starmer survives a full term, that’s already longer than May, Johnson, Truss (!) or Sunak managed. His standing becomes assured, no matter what happens in GE2. Put another way: his incentives are not our incentives. Cynical? Absolutely. True? Without a doubt.

10. Another ruinous decade or so of Tory rule

We know how this plays out. We’ve seen how fast the horror spread these last 13 years. Another decade or so of Tory misrule is an unbearable thought. It’s also a probable future, unless Labour makes changes now.

We also know how hard it is for Labour to win. They need the Tories to mess up so badly that a tide of outrage carries them over the finish line. But the RW press will remind us of Labour’s actual and perceived failings 24/7. So it will take a long time for that outrage to reach critical mass again once they’ve been ejected from power.

In the meantime, we’ll be stuck in an unbearable situation we’re all too familiar with.

That is, unless Labour makes changes NOW. They have to reposition the first domino so that the last domino never falls.

(We should at least allow for the idea that the Tories will take a different approach to governing next time. Unlikely, but not impossible. They may decide the country’s so beaten down, there’s no appetite for culture wars and immigrant-bashing. And things may be ok… for a while. But the tendency to revert to type is likely to prove hard to shake in the longer term.)

Take a deep breath. Have a coffee and a biscuit. You’ve earned them. We’ve seen the problem. After the break, it’s time to tackle the solution.

Reminder: Labour have adopted what can only be described as a Brexit maximalist position, explicitly ruling out rejoining the Single Market or Customs Union, restoring Freedom of Movement, or campaigning to rejoin the EU itself. Instead, they have only committed to small changes, such as negotiating a vetinary agreement to reduce checks on food.

Here are a few recent examples of comments by Labour front-benchers and ministers:

Angela Rayner, LBC, July 2023: “[Leaving] the European Union was a decision that was made some years ago in a referendum and Remain lost and that’s the facts. We’ve left the European Union” “I think people are angry that what they were promised hasn’t been delivered. But we had a referendum and the referendum was to Leave, and that’s where we are now.”

Wes Streeting, New European, July 2023: "We're not afraid of talking about Brexit, we talk about these issues all the time. I think what people want to hear from us, and some parts of the pro-European movement, is ‘this is a disaster and we want to rejoin'. Well, that just ain't gonna happen, because there's no credible path, and if there's one thing worse than no hope it's false hope. What we can do, and what our allies in the European Union are absolutely up for, is building a stronger, mature, respectful partnership with the European Union. Of course I wish things had been different, but the moral of the story, folks, is voting counts and losing hurts."

David Lammy, Telegraph coverage of his speech, June 2023: “During a speech at a conference in Birmingham, he reiterated that his party ‘will not rejoin the EU, the single market or customs union’ in government. He said: ‘I know that disappoints some people here today. The next Labour government will be focused on what is pragmatic.’”

David Lammy, Express coverage of his speech, June 2023: “Mr Lammy will insist Labour would not rejoin the EU, single market or customs union if Sir Keir Starmer — who attempted to block Brexit 48 times — takes power at the next general election.”

Seema Malhotra, speaking to Sky News in June 2023: "I think we've all moved on from [Brexit]. When I talk to my constituents, I think people know that is now a settled question. We're not going back. What we need to do is to make Brexit work."

Nick Thomas-Symonds, Mirror coverage of his speech, June 2023: “Mr Thomas-Symonds said Labour would not seek to rejoin the EU Customs Union or Single Market when the agreement with Brussels is reviewed in 2025/26, as planned. Instead, the party would offer Brussels the chance for greater security cooperation between the UK and EU as it tried to amend the pact.”

Keir Starmer, in an open letter to Express readers in May 2023: “Express readers deserve their politicians to be clear about where they stand. So let me spell it out simply. Britain’s future is outside the EU. Not in the single market, not in the customs union, not with a return to freedom of movement. Those arguments are in the past, where they belong. But they also expect politicians to be honest.”

Rachel Reeves, May 2023: “There’s no going back. We are outside of the EU now, and under a Labour government that will continue, and we will not re-enter the Single Market or Customs Union.”

Scroll back through the 10-step future scenario above. Notice how Brexit runs through it like a vein pumping poison.

That’s why Labour need to change their approach to Brexit. They need to do it now, not just before the GE. It takes a long, long time for the message to sink in.

(Remember, just 16% of people even realise Labour’s current Brexit position. How do you think the 41% of people who think it’s to rejoin the EU will react when they find out the truth?)

Labour has to stop ruling things out.

Important: Not saying you won’t do something is not the same as saying you will do it.

Please read the sentence above several times, until it sinks in.

Something like: “Labour will do whatever it takes to mitigate the damage Brexit is causing Britain.” They can also add that they will only be able to analyse the full extend of the damage once they’re in power.

Of course, the actual message will need polishing by the pros. They can do a much better job of it than I ever could! But you get the idea. It’s the intent that’s key.

Without the red lines on SM/CU/FoM/Rejoin, anything becomes possible. Labour will be able to react as the situation demands, free of artificial constraints.

Will the tabloids scream? You bet. But not as much as you might think. After all, Labour’s Brexit position will still be less radical than they have been claiming it is. (Labour are not saying “Rejoin”!) And if they’re going to scream, better to have that scream diluted over a year, rather than at max volume just before a GE.

The other huge issue is the amount of time it will take to make a dent in Britain’s mountain of problems. If Labour only get the one term, they’re not going to make a lot of headway.

Don’t think of GEs as coming in 5-year cycles. When the party in power changes, they need a year to pick through the mess and learn what’s going on. And the final year of every 5-year cycle focuses on the next GE. So there’s only ever 4 (more often 3) years of governing in any 5-year cycle.

That’s under FPTP.

Under PR, the story would be completely different.

PR is the only hope we have of achieving any sort of long-term stability.

Why? Because many of the problems Britain faces will take 2, 3, 4+ election cycles to fix. And by gosh do they need fixing! But the only way to find the time to fix them is to form long-term partnerships in the national interest. In other words, PR.

PR rids us of the short-termism mindset that has dragged Britain down for decades. The exact balance in Parliament will change from GE to GE, even under PR. But a coalition should always be possible without involving the Tories or other RW parties.

Isn’t it better to have a share of power forever than absolute power for a few years? (In the latter scenario, the other lot will come in and undo everything you worked towards.)

If you accept the reasoning so far, then you understand why Labour may only get one term.

And that means they have to bring in PR in their first term. Because it’s too late afterwards. FPTP will sink them. But bring in PR, and the pressure valve releases. There’s time to plan things. To fix things. To build things. To improve things. To make Britain better. Not as a cloying, hollow slogan. But in real, tangible ways.

In summary: Labour need to adopt a different approach to Brexit. They need to do so now, not in the runup to the GE. They also need to lay the groundwork to introduce PR. Those two elements together unlock endless possibilities.

Phew, we’re almost done. Thank you for persevering this far.

In parting: You may disagree with what you just read. But please take a big step back and look at the situation with a critical eye. Is your disagreement because the scenario I painted is too horrible to think about? In other words, is reality so stark and so depressing that you shy away from acknowledging it? And is your support for a particular party blinding you to what they can achieve in a short 5-year (and really only 3) period in office?

And that’s it. Please share this material if you think it has value, and have a great day.