Labour position on Brexit explained as Corbyn backs single market

Jeremy Corbyn's whistle stop tour of marginal seats that Labour is targeting in Scotland can be judged a success by most measures.
Picture: Stefan Rousseau/PA WirePicture: Stefan Rousseau/PA Wire
Picture: Stefan Rousseau/PA Wire

The coup de grace was an address to young members at the Drygate Brewery in Glasgow, where he was introduced and hailed by Scottish leader Kezia Dugdale, who called for his resignation only last year.

This show of unity showed just how far Corbyn’s party has come in such a short space of time, having won 7 seats in Scotland at the snap General Election in June.

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Mr Corbyn’s trip North was something akin to a victory tour, although bigger problems lie ahead, not just in Scotland, but in the whole of the UK.

A natural Eurosceptic, though from a left-wing perspective, Mr Corbyn has often struggled to reconcile his beliefs with those of his party, and was accused of offering only lukewarm support for the Remain campaign during the Brexit referendum.

Sir Keir Starmer, Labour’s respected Shadow Secretary of State for Brexit, has attempted to draw a line under Labour’s position on leaving the EU by setting out a new stance on Britain’s departure.

The substance

Mr Starmer’s article in the Observer set to put clear blue water between Labour and the Tories on Brexit even as another round of talks between David Davies and EU negotiators got underway this week.

Crucially, Labour’s new position involves means that after the UK leaves the European Union (according to Article 50, on March 31) Britain would still, temporarily, accept the free market and the customs union.

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The notion that members of the EU should be able to do business withing the club of countries in the EU is one of the body’s founding principles, but is anathema to diehard Brexiteers.

Alongside what was (arguably falsely) cast as ‘mass, unlimited immigration’ to the UK, leaving the single market was one of the main planks of the official and unofficial Leave campaigns last June.

The plans seem to have, from the stance of Jeremy Corbyn trying to burnish his credentials among his base, annoyed the right people, including Nigel Farage, who accused the Labour leader of ‘betraying voters’.

Reaction

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Perhaps the idea was also brought to the fore to help nix the SNP and the Liberal Democrats trying to muscle in on Labour’s ground as the most prominent progressive voice in UK politics.

The SNP initially reacted to the move with cautious, even wary, optimism as Nicola Sturgeon said that if the change was ‘genuine’, it was to be welcomed.

By today, however, the party which has set its stall out as fighting for a separate Brexit deal, has reverted to cynicism over Jeremy Corbyn’s conversion on Europe.

Their head of digital shared an image showing that Labour’s new policy on Europe was just a slightly longer walk before falling off the cliff edge represented by Brexit.

Having been unsure about how to tackle the popular Labour leader during the General Election (eventually plumping for the risible line that Corbyn supporters could vote SNP to back Corbyn policies) the SNP has clearly decided that Brexit is an area on which they can back a fight and win.

Civil war over?

That isn’t to say that the battle for Brexit supremacy isn’t entirely over within the still fractious Parliamentary Labour Party that Corbyn still presides over.

The move to retain the Customs Union and Single Market is only a temporary measure, that should, according to Mr Starmer, last as long as is necessary.

A campaigning group set up within the Labour Party in Parliament is pushing for Mr Corbyn to embrace full, continuing membership of the single market.

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Mr Corbyn has left the door open for that membership to be permanent, but the UK Government has aimed to leave most aspects of the EU by the fateful date of March 31 of 2019.

Mr Corbyn’s apparent passivity during the referendum is what sparked a leadership challenge against him last year.

While the election result has guaranteed his immediate safety, and the changes in Brexit position will please the Labour membership, there are still clearly arguments to be had inside the Labour Party, and beyond, with both the SNP and the Conservatives sensing a weakness.