January 20, 2022 - 9:46am
You could be forgiven for thinking that Labour’s new answer on Brexit — ‘Make Brexit Work’ — is anodyne, derivative and indicative that Keir Starmer would rather talk about anything else. Yet there are two different ways of understanding those three words that help us understand the current fork in the road that Starmer faces as leader of the Labour Party, and the strategic choice he must contend with.
The first interpretation is the technocratic one. ‘Make Brexit Work’ can be interpreted as a call for relatively minor technical tweaks to the existing UK-EU deal: for example a ‘Swiss-style’ veterinary agreement on Sanitary and Phytosanitary (SPS) checks to reduce practical problems and friction on goods moving from Great Britain to Northern Ireland.
An alternative understanding of ‘Make Brexit Work’ is altogether different. It could be about putting worker’s rights at the heart of an ethical trade policy — a Brexit for workers. Starmer could make it clear that he is willing to use the levers newly available to the UK state to invest directly in UK industry, beyond relatively meaningless initiatives like freeports, in ways that would make Rishi Sunak blanch. As David Frost and Dominic Cummings argue for the benefits of ‘Singapore-on-Thames’ and the necessity of de-regulating the economy to reap the benefits of Brexit, ‘Make Brexit Work’ could be about establishing the foundations for the UK to remain a mainstream European social market economy.
That second understanding of ‘Make Brexit Work’ sounds a lot like, in other words, the platform of one of the more derided movements in the last decade of British politics — the ‘Lexiteers’. Left-wing advocates of Brexit were seen in Remain circles as useful idiots for a cause that was unremittingly centred on immigration and ushered in the premiership of Boris Johnson.
Yet it is this second interpretation of ‘Get Brexit Done’ that, intriguingly, Starmer appeared to pick up yesterday in a profile in The Guardian in perhaps his clearest signal yet on Brexit since becoming Leader of the Opposition. He made it clear there was no way back to membership of the single market or the customs union under Labour, and that “we do have to show what we can now do that we couldn’t do when we were in the EU … that is part of what I mean by making Brexit work.” In other words, it is not about making Brexit boring but about talking up what it could help a Labour government do.
It is possible that Starmer may well be able to ‘have his cake and eat it’, successfully marrying both the Left-populist definition that talks up the benefits of Brexit, as well as being seen as a managerial figure able to come up with useful solutions to make UK-EU relations easier.
Join the discussion
Join like minded readers that support our journalism by becoming a paid subscriber
To join the discussion in the comments, become a paid subscriber.
Join like minded readers that support our journalism, read unlimited articles and enjoy other subscriber-only benefits.
SubscribeWell, considering he didn’t merely favour Remain, but actively tried to overturn the referendum result and made numerous trips to the EU negotiators to consult about scuppering Britain’s interests, he might well mean turning it into a Brexit-In-Name-Only and favour the EU, where his real loyalties lie.
I won’t hold my breath. Starmer could do this, he could do that, but he is not a free agent.
I think Starmer would find it easier governing the country than turning the Labour party around!
The problem is, Starmer is probably not the person to lead Labour in this direction. He has too much previous on this subject, and people won’t forget. The other major problem is that too many people on the Left still retain an almighty hatred of Brexit, and they will take a while longer to get over it.
For Starmer to become P.M he may well have to form a coalition with the S.N.P. and or the Lib Democrats and both would demand much closer relations with the E.U. most certainly not make Brexit work!
I’m glad you find it easy to believe him, Alan; I shall require a lot more convincing, as I suspect he has even more principles than Groucho Marx!
l***a pary or the C..tsetvatives? Neither thanks.. we need a ” new Whig” party…