The Labour split has accentuated the Brexit crisis
(Photo by Leon Neal/Getty Images)
If Ireland and free trade divided political parties in the 19th century, in the last 50 years it has been Europe, Europe, Europe. The inability of the political class – specifically the Westminster MP-media elites – to ask, let alone answer, the question of Britain’s relationship with Europe has led to seven Labour MPs announcing that they are resigning from Labour, and forming an independent group in the Commons.
Their decision all but destroys Mrs May’s hopes of getting Labour MPs to cross the floor and back her unworkable deal, which plunges the UK into years of “Brexeternity”.
Labour MPs who might wish to back Mrs May will now be unwilling to face the accusation of aiding and abetting the Tories, as the tsunami of hate and insults starts to fall upon their seven colleagues whose departure seriously damages Labour.
For Jeremy Corbyn, it is all déja vu. He was elected in 1983, soon after the breakaway of Labour MPs into the Social Democratic Party rendered Labour unelectable for nearly two decades.
It was mainly the European issue that led to the creation in 1981 of the SDP: four Labour MPs could not support the turn against Europe initiated by Michael Foot and Tony Benn after Labour’s defeat in 1979.
There were other issues then, including unilateral disarmament. Today, it is the atrocious handling of anti-semitism by the Labour leadership that has edged doughty campaigners against Jew-hate like Mike Gapes and Luciana Berger over the edge.
The bigger and more important similarity is that after 1980, young Labour leftists egged on by brilliant communicators like George Galloway and Chris Mullin encouraged a process of deselection of Labour MPs not to their taste. The smart young aide to Tony Benn at the heart of this process was Jon Lansman. He re-surfaced 35 years later to found Momentum whose militants – a party within a party – are seeking to deselect MPs.
In 1983, Labour’s election manifesto had as its top line a pledge to leave the European Community. Then, Margaret Thatcher was a committed European poised to force through the Single Market legislation which abolished national vetoes in core areas of sovereign government policy. She demolished Labour’s anti-European pretensions, which up to 1983 were backed by Labour MPs like Neil Kinnock, Robin Cook, Jack Straw and David Blunkett.
But it took a long time – a 14 year wait. Today, Jeremy Corbyn and the Labour shadow cabinet seem to be as ardent proponents of Brexit as Theresa May. Corbyn and his team reject the existing Customs Union for their own fantasy variety. They reject the Single Market and its four indivisible freedoms.
When thousands filled the streets of London in October to march against Brexit, the Labour leader not only disappeared, he ordered all the shadow cabinet to boycott the demo.
90 per cent of Labour members want the British people to be asked again on amputating the UK from Europe. Corbyn responds with indifference to their demand, even if it is now official Labour Party conference policy. His chief attack dog, Unite’s Len McCluskey, treats the views on Brexit of core rank and file Labour Party activists with contempt.
The seven MPs represent north and south England, South Yorkshire and Merseyside, industrial Manchester, the carmakers and Easyjet employees of Luton, young MPs with a glittering future, and older MPs in their last parliament.
As David Lammy noted on LBC when Chuka Umunna worked for him as a researcher, Umunna supported left-wing ideas. There are many European Union member states where ideas of social justice, anti-austerity policies, worker and union friendly labour market policies and limits on environmental damage are more strongly entrenched than in Britain, even at the end of 13 years of Labour government in 2010.
Corbyn’s life-long commitment to opposing European construction, like Michael Foot’s life-long commitment to unilateral nuclear disarmament, has a following on the left. But it is a guaranteed way not to get a majority to form a government. Labour has lost all support in Scotland where Scottish voters, especially non-Tory ones, are pro-European. Without Scotland and without English seats where the Jewish community has a presence, Labour’s chances of winning an election are zero.
What happens now? We shall see if the magnificent seven have real money and organising networks. There are 30 seats with majorities of under 500, and 30 Tory seats with majorities of under 1000. A new party candidate may not win the seat under the first-past-the-post system, but if he or she attracts just 500-1000 votes it could mean an incumbent MP is booted out.
In the 1980s, trade unions rescued Labour after 1983, shutting down deselections, expelling Militants, and recentering Labour. There is no sign of that happening today. Nor are there young Tony Blairs, Gordon Browns, Mo Mowlams or John Smiths on the Labour horizon. Of the 26 members of the shadow cabinet, 22 will of pensionable age – in their 60s, 70s and one will be 80 – at the time of the next general election in 2022.
On LBC David Lammy asked, correctly, when will Anna Soubry, Dominic Grieve (and other Tory MPs and ministers who know how damaging Brexit will be) find the courage of their convictions and also take the road to independence, as did a number of Conservative MPs at the end of the 1990s in dismay at the beginning of the Tory Party turn to anti-EU politics.
On that we shall wait and see. But there are two conclusions now to be drawn. Brexit is both a super-glue that is clogging up government and normal politics. But Brexit is also dissolving existing political structures. Neither Theresa May nor Jeremy Corbyn have been able to convince their parties of the wisdom of leaving the Single Market and Customs Union.
The seven Labour MPs who have left will put pressure on Labour MPs who are currently backing Theresa May to come back into line and show loyalty to their colleagues and the party by opposing her unworkable deal. Her chances of getting Labour MPs to back her deal have gone down sharply. Nor is there much point in MPs like Yvette Cooper requesting a three month extension, which is meaningless as there are no new points to negotiate.
The resignation has accentuated the Brexit crisis. Either the hard-liners win and there is a No Deal crash out. Or the Government has to ask for a much longer “Revoke and Reflect” period from the EU, which will outrage what Nick Boles has dubbed the “NUKIP” tendency in the Conservative Party. Or, the Government may finally accept the David Davis maxim that “a democracy that cannot change its mind ceases to be a democracy” and ask if the people would like to re-think.
Alternatively, as in 2017, there is the gambler’s throw of a general election, but although Labour can quickly find hard-left candidates to stand in the seats of the departing seven, it is doubtful if a new election would produce a Commons with a clear majority line in Brexit. Both Labour and the Tories would enter the election divided, at each other’s throats and demoralised. David Cameron, and Nick Clegg – who endorsed his Bexit plebiscite decision – have a lot to answer for.
