Tagged with Brexit

What Tony Blair gets wrong

Taking time out from hanging with Bono and advising Central Asian dictators on how best to spin repression and executions, His Blairness has condescended to return to British politics to tell us things. And there are two things on his mind: Brexit and the election result. To save you the trouble, I’ve read his essay so you don’t have to.

Boiling his argument down to its constituent parts, the first is the usual Brexit is bad and is a massive distraction from more pressing problems. Well, there’s no disagreement here. Brexit is bad, and one cannot deny that third country status outside of the single market and the customs union is going to cause major problems. That said, we shouldn’t just accept this situation. It’s the job of political leaders to act as educators and set forth a number of Brexit options, which could include an invitation for the EU to reform as a price of keeping our membership. According to some unspecified chats he’s had with the movers and the shakers, they want us to stay and are even willing to compromise on free movement. Continue reading →

Labour MPs put internal divisions on public display again

This article from the Hounslow Momentum website expresses a widespread alarm at the behaviour of the 50 Labour MPs who chose to make a very public display of Labour disunity. Being the website of a local group it discusses a local MP who chose to support the Chuka Umunna amendment. Similar points can and should be made about all the other MPs who chose to participate in this harmful exercise.

The anti-Corbyn camp told us for two years that electoral advance was impossible under Corbyn’s leadership. The majority of Labour MPs were so sure of it that the opened party divisions to full public view with a vote of no confidence against the leader which 75% of Labour MPs supported (including Ruth Cadbury and Seema Malhotra). And yet Labour rise in the polls was the biggest since 1945. Labour had experienced dramatic decline from the moment when Tony Blair became prime minister – the data is undeniable. It reached its lowest point of public support in the election of 2010 (led by Gordon Brown). Five years later Labour lifted itself marginally from a historic low point by just 2% (led by Ed Miliband) but clearly there was no sea change. Continue reading →

What Chuka Umunna’s amendment showed us

“We will scrap the Conservatives’ Brexit White Paper and replace it with fresh negotiating priorities that have a strong emphasis on retaining the benefits of the Single Market and the Customs Union – which are essential for maintaining industries, jobs and businesses in Britain. Labour will always put jobs and the economy first.” There you go, clear as day. Labour’s position from the 2017 manifesto on the Brexit negotiations. That nicely prefaces a look at Chuka Umunna’s rebel amendment on retaining single market membership that was put to the Commons yesterday.

I would like to make a basic distinction between the people who rebelled between the principled and the self-serving. Continue reading →

Britain isn’t booming – it’s in a crisis

Chancellor Phillip Hammond

The latest UK GDP data confirm that the British economy remains in a crisis. As government spokespersons never tire of telling us the opposite, and are dutifully echoed by the majority of the media, then it is important to set out the factual case on the economy and to explain where the discrepancy between rhetoric and reality arises.

Once the factual analysis is made the following points are clearly established:

  • The UK remains in a crisis
  • On key measures of the living standards of the population, the UK is in the worst position of all the advanced industrialised economies
  • Fundamental economic factors mean that this crisis is set to deepen
  • The project of austerity will be resumed with a vengeance in response to Brexit

The UK economy grew by just 1.8% in 2016. This is below the average growth level since the recession, which itself has been miserably weak. On a calendar year basis, the recovery began in 2010. Since then GDP growth has been an average of 2%, so 2016 was among the slower years in a poor recovery. Continue reading →

Brexit: Where do we go from here?

BrexitWhereNextThe Brexit debate has now become very unclear, with in my view many activists and quite a few MPs either confused or failing to understand that Labour’s position was and is the only one it is possible to take if the object is to minimise the damage to Labour and lay the basis for a future return of support.

Labour was put in a very difficult position by the outcome of the referendum vote. As the YouGov article by Anthony Wells makes clear: (), Labour took the line that was likely, based on polling, to be least damaging, i.e. respecting the result by not voting against Article 50, even without any amendments being agreed, and seeking to remain within the Single Market. The former retains some of those who might otherwise have gone to UKIP or the Tories, the latter those who might otherwise have gone to the Lib-Dems or Greens. There has of course been some movement of this kind anyway, but it could have been far worse if either a total Leave or Remain position had been taken. Continue reading →