Labour finally flexed its muscles over Brexit on Tuesday, winning a modest concession from the government over Theresa May’s “plan”. But by signing up for No 10’s self-imposed timetable for triggering article 50, the shadow Brexit secretary, Keir Starmer, also underlined how boxed in the opposition is.
Labour had tabled a motion for an opposition day debate on Wednesday, calling on the government to publish its plan for Brexit before launching the two-year EU exit process.
Facing a backbench rebellion spearheaded by Anna Soubry, the government caved in and said it would support the motion – but only if MPs accepted the end-March deadline for invoking article 50.
The Labour frontbench felt it had little choice but to accept that deal – but by Wednesday morning, some backbenchers were already sniping about Starmer’s tactics.
They resent that if they back the motion on Wednesday, they feel their hands will be tied if legislation to trigger article 50 comes to the Commons in the new year.
Labour’s room for manoeuvre is doubly limited. First, the party has repeatedly made clear that it does not want to “block Brexit”. That is because the verdict in June’s referendum was clear, but also because many of Labour’s traditional heartland areas registered a strong vote to leave.
So while the party’s official position during the referendum campaign was to remain in the EU (though the recriminations continue about whether Jeremy Corbyn campaigned hard enough), it makes little sense to hold out against Brexit altogether.
The Liberal Democrats, the most pro-EU party, were energised by the leave vote and can campaign enthusiastically against Brexit, speaking for anguished remainers.
But if Labour sought to put itself in the same territory it would risk alienating many of its traditional voters and driving a coach and horses through its already fragile electoral coalition, which involves uniting, as Andy Burnham recently said, “Hampstead and Hull”.
Secondly, even the Labour frontbench, most of whom were handpicked by Corbyn, are far from united on what sort of Brexit they would like to achieve. There is a broad-brush agreement to put safeguarding the economy before taming immigration, which Starmer, the shadow business secretary Clive Lewis and the shadow chancellor John McDonnell have all stated publicly.
Starmer has made clear he takes that to mean continued membership of the customs union and the EU single market, allowing goods to pass freely across borders.
But Corbyn has repeatedly stressed the shortcomings of the single market – not the unfettered immigration but the rules to prevent governments from backing struggling companies through state aid. He also criticised the enforcement of privatisation and liberalisation through trade deals such as the much-loathed Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership.
McDonnell has also stressed the “enormous opportunities” presented by Brexit, suggesting he would have little problem with the end of March timetable.
Some backbenchers believe Labour should have been more robust and rejected the government’s amendment on Tuesday, in effect reserving the right to throw sand in the wheels of any article 50 legislation next year (assuming the government loses the supreme court case). Chris Leslie, Ben Bradshaw, Neil Coyle and David Lammy have all said they will not support the motion.
They believe threatening to slow down the legislation unless the government fulfils certain demands is one of the few weapons at remainers’ disposal to secure the best Brexit possible. And they are irked that the government has merely committed itself to producing a Brexit plan – not a white paper or another, more formal, document.
But rejecting the amendment might be hard to reconcile with the party’s recent pronouncements about not “frustrating” Brexit, with the enthusiasm of a good proportion of its traditional voters for cracking on with leaving, and indeed with Corbyn and McDonnell’s scepticism about the benefits of the EU.
In truth, Labour is walking an all but impossible tightrope and risks shedding voters in more than one direction – to Tim Farron’s wholehearted remainers on one side and Paul Nuttall’s reinvigorated Ukip on the other. Starmer clearly believes that in those circumstances, small victories are the only kind achievable.
