To pass a Brexit deal, the new Prime Minister needs Labour MPs
Chris Ratcliffe/Bloomberg via Getty Images
As soon as he arrives in Number 10, the new Prime Minister will face a series of difficult Brexit challenges: an EU which is reluctant to consider any renegotiation of the thrice-defeated Brexit deal, a threadbare majority, and a Parliament determined to stop No Deal by any means at its disposal. He will also face a race against time. The four months between now and the Brexit deadline October 31 is somewhat illusory — once recess, party conferences and the EU’s own transition to new leadership are taken into account, the parliamentary window for passing Brexit legislation is vanishingly small.
Even if the new Prime Minister defies the odds and secures a modified Brexit deal, he will still face an uphill battle to get that deal through Parliament. Any changes to the deal are likely to fall far short of the expectations of the 28 Conservative Brexiteers who voted against the deal on 29 March. It is highly likely, therefore, that the Government will need Labour votes — and with the Labour leadership moving towards (but seemingly never arriving at) a second referendum, these votes will have to come from backbenchers. At the third meaningful vote, just five Labour MPs voted for the deal. Another two abstained, while another — Gareth Snell — recently said he will vote for a deal if it comes back for the fourth time. This is unlikely to be enough.
Last week, a much larger group of 26 Labour MPs wrote a letter to Jeremy Corbyn urging him not to back a second referendum, and instead called for the party to “back a deal before 31 October”. On the Andrew Marr Show on Sunday, one of the signatories — the former Europe minister Caroline Flint — suggested that this group could back a Brexit deal in the autumn. However, Flint is not necessarily representative of the other Labour signatories — she has already voted for the deal twice. Both the Government and the media have repeatedly been blindsided because they have listened too much to MPs like Flint and John Mann, who tell them what they want to hear, and do not speak for Labour MPs whose votes are harder to obtain. Mann was being invited into Number 10 for discussions on workers’ rights months after he had already voted for the deal, and sources close to the other anti-referendum Labour MPs have said that the government “took far too much notice” of him.
The focus should instead be on the remaining 21 Labour MPs who signed the letter to Corbyn but are yet to vote for the deal. These MPs have a spectrum of views and concerns, on Brexit and beyond. Some, like Stephen Kinnock, support post-Brexit single market membership; others see ending freedom of movement as a red line. Five of the signatories are shadow ministers, who would have to resign to back a Brexit deal the leadership opposed. The 21 also represent a spectrum of views on Labour’s internal politics, ranging from left-wingers like Dennis Skinner to centrist Corbyn-critics like Ruth Smeeth. If the next Prime Minister is serious about winning this group over, these nuances will need to be taken into account. But there is also onus on the Labour MPs in question to put their money where their mouths are. In their letter to Corbyn, they warned him against “rejecting any Brexit in the hope of securing a perfect deal” — yet to some observers, that is precisely what these MPs have themselves been doing for months.
Many of these MPs’ substantive concerns were largely met by Theresa May, and should be preserved by her successor — notably stronger commitment to protect workers’ rights and give parliament a say over the future relationship. While many of these MPs support the leadership’s erstwhile position of a post-Brexit customs union, one suspects they may settle with postponing this question into the future relationship, rather than making the impossible demand of a “permanent” customs union now. Fundamentally, though, the chief concern of these Labour MPs is political: they’ll only support a deal if they think it might actually pass. Most of them are unlikely to risk their political careers so that Prime Minister Boris loses by 20 votes rather than 40. That means that, in parallel with engaging with Labour MPs, a Government seeking to pass a deal will also need to win over as many Conservative and DUP MPs round as possible. This seems a tall order, although the ongoing work by the Alternative Arrangements Commission shows some promising signs.
Ultimately, however, this is all academic if the next Prime Minister doesn’t bring a deal back to Parliament; the would-be Labour dealers may have missed their chance. If the Government pursues No Deal in autumn, then a vote of no confidence followed by a general election is the most likely outcome. If that happens, the electoral performance of Labour’s dwindling band of Brexit-reconciled MPs, many of whom hold marginal seats, will be worth watching. In a Parliament even more fragmented than this one, the decisions of individual MPs will take on an even greater significance.
