Brexit: General election must be held if Theresa May's deal fails '“ Richard Leonard

If Theresa May's Brexit deal is voted down, her Government will have failed to deliver on the issue that has defined its tenure, writes Richard Leonard.

Theresa Mays Brexit deal pleases no one and an election is the only way to break the deadlock (Picture: Ben Birchall/WPA Pool/Getty Images)

The Tories have failed miserably on Brexit. Because of their tardiness and dogmatism over almost two years, Theresa May has negotiated a deal that pleases no one. There are calls for the EU to give us more time, or for the Government to hold a second referendum. MPs and journalists have been abused and even threatened in Westminster, as some in the far-right attempt to hijack this moment of uncertainty and chaos for their own extreme ends. Divisions in our country risk being widened and hardened.

All of this, and more, is why Labour believes that if the Prime Minister’s deal is voted down by Parliament tonight, there must be a General Election to break the deadlock. I have said before that the focus on Brexit is crowding out other pressing issues, such as the lack of affordable housing, under-funding of our NHS, the budget crisis facing schools, homelessness, poverty, inequality, an economy that is not working in the interests of the many. It suits both the SNP and Tory governments that we don’t discuss these things. But it stands to reason that if the Tories can’t pass legislation on the one issue they have defined their tenure on, then they will have lost the right to call themselves a government at all.

We have said that it is a matter of when, not if, we call a vote of no confidence in May’s Government and that we will not do it for the purposes of it being defeated, which was the bizarre position the SNP demanded we place ourselves in before Christmas.

It is a matter of simple arithmetic that Labour does not have enough MPs to win a confidence vote on its own. Nicola Sturgeon’s judgement – which has been called into serious question by the events of the last week – was found wanting when she admitted she did not really want, or even expect, to win the no-confidence vote that she was adamant was necessary. The First Minister also admitted it might have had the effect of uniting the Tories at the very point when the Prime Minister looked at her most vulnerable.

Instead of forensically applying pressure on the Tories, as Labour has done, the SNP has spent more time attacking Jeremy Corbyn, which tells us everything about its priorities and who the SNP really fears. Labour wants to get rid of this rotten Tory Government, so we can end austerity and start investing in our people, our communities and our industries again.

We know that the Conservative Party’s driving force is, and has always been, divide and rule. To protect the interests of the few at the expense of the many.

One of the interesting features of the fallout from the Alex Salmond case is how it appears to be exposing some of those same Establishment politics here in Scotland. At the centre of the case are two courageous women who put their faith in a system that has badly let them down. Which is why our first priority must be to guarantee the duty of care we owe to them, and safeguard their access to justice, to repair the damage done and restore trust and confidence in the system.

Mr Salmond’s first priority has been to triumphantly claim victory, deflect attention and, in an email to supporters, seek to erase the existence of the two women who have made complaints by not even mentioning them.

Ms Sturgeon’s first priority has been to try and protect her own position. While it was the right thing to do, it took her days to refer herself for investigation under the Ministerial Code. But the First Minister is still asking us to accept the implausible scenario that secret meetings and telephone calls between the First Minister of the Scottish Government, the former First Minister of the Scottish Government, about a Scottish Government investigation into complaints made by Scottish Government workers were not “Government meetings”. So we need maximum transparency and robust parliamentary scrutiny of this process and its outcomes.

Last Friday, we were treated to a perfect example of how scared of democracy our opponents are, when they expressed faux outrage after I dared to say that the Labour Party’s next election manifesto will be decided by the Labour Party.

Unlike other parties, Labour is a social movement of over half a million people. We decide our policy through debate and consultation. This is the process that produced our popular manifesto for the snap election in 2017 in which we defied all the so-called experts who had written us off and took away the Tories’ majority. And this is the process that will decide our next manifesto. It’s not shocking, it’s not surprising; it’s called democracy.

What I do know is that our next manifesto will not just be about Brexit. It will also be about delivering real change, real investment in our communities and industries, and real power to every region and nation of the UK.

If the Conservatives block a General Election, then our policy – again democratically agreed at our annual party conference in September – is that we will keep all options on the table, including the option of campaigning for a public vote.

Let us not forget that the only reason that people are even discussing a second referendum, or extending the Article 50 process for talks with the EU, is that the Tories have made such a mess of things. No one is pretending that any of the possible solutions to clear up this mess are simple. Elections are hard fought, referendum campaigns can turn nasty and the outcomes can be contested for years to come.

But politics is not about doing the easy things, it’s about making the right decisions for our country. I believe that a General Election is the most practical way to break the Brexit deadlock and the only way to decide what our future looks like.

The choice is clear. Either years more austerity and division under the Tories, or a society under Labour that works in the interests of the majority, that challenges the power of privileged elites, and restores trust in our democracy.