Labour, Brexit and the uncomfortable truth

Some Remain/Rejoin supporters want Labour to talk about Brexit more. Be careful what you wish for. You won't like everything you hear.

I was a staunch Remainer.

I believe Brexit has been a disaster for our country and economy. It was a backwards step I wish we had never taken. If we could wave a magic wand and have it all go away, my arm would ache from just how hard I would be waving that.

But while I was on the marches - one of which is pictured above - I was always a bit unhappy about those I thought of as ‘the beret people’ (some also pictured above). I found in conversations with them they were too often dismissive of leave voters as stupid or bad. There was no sense of trying to see the point of the other side or trying to change their minds. Just outright derision and dismissal.

In many ways, these were all too often comfortably middle class people who had found themselves on the sharp end of a political decision for the first time in their lives. For many, though far from a majority of Remainers, their indignant reaction wasn’t just one of sorrow at what was lost or fury at what had been taken from them, but one of indignation that they could be placed in a position to have it taken at all.

They weren’t wrong not to like Brexit. At all. But democracy may mean things happening that you don’t like. You’re probably forced to live with them, you aren’t forced to like them or not to campaign against them. But how you campaign matters.

And the way some went about expressing that dislike all too often fell precisely into every stereotype of the overly entitled elite that rubbed many leave voters up the wrong way. Their profound sense of loss was expressed in ways that pushed everyone further to their corners. It was not successful, at least in part, because it was not designed to change their opponents’ minds but to soothe their own hearts. And that is rarely a successful campaigning strategy.

Leavers too never felt secure enough in their win enough not to guard it jealously. And as that sense of fragility grew, so too did their need for a sense of not just winning a referendum, but in the total defeat of their opponents at any cost.

This meant that the definition of what Brexit meant went ever further. Real Brexit no longer meant simply leaving the EU. For many, it became essential that we leave the Single Market and the Customs Union - though that had never been made explicit during the referendum campaign. For a not insignificant minority Brexit became leaving with no deal at all. So any deal that was left over became a betrayal because the need for the sense of winning could not be satisfied by anything that could be delivered.

I’ve watched these dynamics play out many times on a number of issues. When a political stance becomes intrinsic to your sense of self, that is incredibly hard to react to politically rather than emotionally. At best, we all do a bit of both. But one of the reasons Brexit has been so incredibly divisive is that it has added an additional identity to ‘identity politics’ and made it binary and oppositional.

While Brexit has done a great deal of damage to our economy and our international standing we need to disaggregate this from the damage that has been done over the last eight years to our politics.

Here we come to the Labour campaign and its relative quiet on Brexit.

Rejoiners want to hear that Labour completely agrees with them on the damage of Brexit, which Labour has so far just nodded to in their refrain against the ‘botched Brexit deal’.

But simply criticising the deal is not enough for the loudest of voices. Because any deal would not be good enough - as it is an acknowledgement that we will not be returning to a position of membership where such deal-making was not necessary. Rejoiners want Labour to wave my aforementioned wand and have everything go back to the world they liked and understood.

But the truth rejoiners don’t want to hear is that is impossible. Not improbable. Not undemocratic. Not too difficult. Impossible.

Even if the conditions were right to do so, Labour could not unilaterally return the UK to the deal we had with the EU as part of our membership. We had certain special terms and conditions that will just not be on the table were we to return to it.

If we were to return to ask for EU membership, we would be in a humbled position at that negotiating table and would have to accept the same rules as other, smaller countries. That seems a very lost factor in the clamour to rejoin immediately.

The EU is also drifting - sometimes rapidly shifting - rightwards. We do not know yet if this is a long terms shift or not, but if it is then the EU we might wish to rejoin will be quite a different beast. Its parliament may have very different priorities and emphasis than the one we left.

Remember that it was Jacques Delors speech to the TUC in 1988 that sold the British left (largely) on membership of the EU. That speech emphasised the social justice and rights-based aspects of Europe - aspects enshrined in the Social Charter which John Major’s government opted out of - an opt-out Blair’s government overturned.

That one speech exemplified all that Europe was trying to be in Social Democratic terms. Now imagine what the speech might be in ten years as the right change the EU from within.

I don’t know if this will happen. But it must be worthy of consideration that any timeframe for Britain going back into the EU might see dramatic changes to the body we would be joining that go significantly against the values of those currently marching for rejoining. It also wouldn’t shock me, if this did happen, to see the anti-EU right also do an about-turn as they decide they want to be part of the Orban/Le Pen/Meloni club after all.

All of this is a bit theoretical and a long way from the current election. But if you want to talk about Brexit more, then this is what you will need to be prepared to discuss.

But what about the current election and the current damaged economy?

Well again, this needs to be put into a far greater political context than the economic losses that Brexit has caused.

Often cited in the argument for Labour to be louder and pushier for rejoining is fairly consistent polling that show large margins for wanting to rejoin.

Polls shown on the National Centre for Social Research website

These are pretty stark and do, indeed, show a majority view for thinking that Brexit was a mistake.

What I am a lot less confident about is any idea that the country would like to go through another divisive referendum.

Labour’s message at this election has been one of ending Tory Chaos. A lot of that chaos has been caused by Cameron’s referendum and the failure of every single one of his successors to deal with the querulous response to it from his - and their - backbenchers.

So why is Labour not being more explicit about what a disaster Brexit is?

Well, why would they?

Labour are running against the Tories and making an argument against the wider context of chaos - against Cameron’s austerity; against May’s inability; against Johnson’s immorality; against Truss’s insanity and against Sunak’s incapability.

They are not running against those who voted for Brexit. They neither need nor want to make an argument that frames them as the bad guys when the Tories are right there.

And they also know that, unlike promises they can make about ending the chaos, there is significantly less they can do in terms of Brexit.

I don’t think anyone believes that we could rejoin the EU - in any form - without another referendum. I don’t know that the numbers above indicate a desire to go through that again.

One of the sentiments I hear most often expressed by voters at this election is for a period where there is less politics in their lives. They want a government that will get on with things in their name, without having to think about it in their everyday lives. A good state that delivers for them rather than works against them.

Political journalists may be finding this campaign dull. But for many many voters, that very dullness is reassuring after a decade of ‘excitement’. And it is OK to want to be reassured more than excited (and yes, I get how middle-aged this makes me sound but I turn 50 next year and I am tired dammit). Given this, no party would be stupid enough to seek another divisive national referendum.

Instead, Labour has made explicit in its manifesto that we will seek closer ties with Europe - but remain outside the EU. Something the Brexit referendum result gives them the perfect right to pursue and something that will not provoke fevered excitement either for or against outside of the extremes of the debate - who would be loud and extreme anyway.

Labour’s manifesto is one of what I am increasingly thinking of as radical gradualism. It is a permission structure for more than its critics think. But it is not a revolution. The change it promises will be slow, considered, thought through and - hopefully - well implemented. If they are, they will be much harder to reverse than anything more suddenly different. If it works, Britain will look very different in a decade - and that includes our relationship with the EU.

So, as a rejoiner, I am happy with this incremental change. And as a campaigns professional, I also understand why Labour aren’t talking about it.

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