Why Labour faces an existential wipeout over its opposition to Brexit

Former Health Secretary Wes Streeting has spoken about one day rejoining the European Union (Picture: Jack Hill/WPA pool) | Getty Images

Is Andy Burnham, Labour’s Prince of the North and hoped-for saviour, walking into an elephant trap set by Keir Starmer and his former chief of staff, Morgan McSweeney? I’ve not been reading any conspiracy blogs but it is difficult to fathom why the mayor of Greater Manchester would choose the constituency of Makerfield of all places to get back into the House of Commons.

Yes, Makerfield is next door to the constituency of Leigh that Andy Burnham used to represent and yes, he needs desperately to win a by-election if he is to challenge Starmer for the Labour leadership and hence become Prime Minister. But for a politician who has said that he looks forward to the day the UK rejoins the European Union, you might think his supposedly superior political antennae would tell him not to contest a Labour-held constituency with the highest ranking pro-Brexit vote of 65 per cent.

Curiously, Josh Simons, the former MP who resigned his seat after only two years so Burnham might save Labour, was, before becoming an MP, director of the think tank, Labour Together, that McSweeney was the chief architect of. It’s almost as if Starmer and his former chief adviser want Burnham to fight a seat with a majority of only 5,399 so he might lose.

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Pull the other one

If Burnham can’t win it, then Labour is finished; if Burnham wins, it means Starmer is finished. No surprise then to find his likely leadership rival, former Health Secretary Wes Streeting, was quick to throw a political grenade into the debate by suggesting the UK should indeed rejoin the EU – thus causing journalists to immediately ask Burnham if he agreed.

It was a clever way of ensnaring Burnham, who had to deflect the question by saying it was an aspiration for the future and that domestic issues were what he would be focussing on. Pull the other one. Someone wanting to be Prime Minister needs to be willing to talk about a future vision for the whole country, not just Makerfield.

Meanwhile, where is Starmer in all of this psychodrama that he said would become a thing of the past if Labour gained power? It reminds me of how Tony Blair’s Labour said that political sleaze and scandal would become a thing of the past once he took power, only for it to be just as bad if not worse with Labour cabinet ministers becoming involved in financial and sexual scandals that shocked and entertained us in equal measure.

This microcosm of Labour’s incoherence and incompetence comes about because, like the Conservatives, the party has still not come to terms with the 2016 EU referendum. The Tory party was at war with itself, having backed the remain campaign while in government, with David Cameron walking off stage and leaving his successors to fight over how the UK should leave.

The outcome was unsurprisingly sub-optimal, taking some four years to deliver and leaving Northern Ireland behind, entangled in many aspects of EU law that undermines its place in the UK by diverting trade with Great Britain towards the Republic of Ireland.

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A motorway to EU membership

Labour was always divided on Brexit when led by Jeremy Corbyn and yet Starmer provided reassurance to Brexit supporters in former Labour seats that had been lost to Boris Johnson. He pledged the UK would stay out of the EU’s Customs Union, Single Market and freedom of movement if Labour took power.

Now we find Starmer’s so-called “EU reset” is, to paraphrase the late Tam Dalyell, a motorway to EU membership without any off-ramp. The adoption of EU laws on technical standards, labelling and processes will be an imposition on all businesses whether or not they export to any country at all, not just low-growth EU member states.

Such rules will conflict with the new trade agreements we have established with fast-growing economies that can help new exports provide much-needed economic growth. Meanwhile the adoption of a European youth visa will allow access to better paid UK jobs in competition with our own school leavers and graduates who are struggling to find jobs as youth unemployment rises.

The adoption of higher EU carbon taxes will help drive yet more industry overseas when Brexit was set up to help re-shore jobs back to Britain. Yet Labour wonders why the working class don’t identify with Labour any more.

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Talking down Brexit

Although appearing different, Starmer, Streeting and Burnham are politicians cut from the same cloth. Rather than work with the reality of evidence, they have to present a false narrative to justify their ideological support for subcontracting their ability to govern to unaccountable foreign politicians and bureaucrats in Brussels.

Starmer, Rachel Reeves, Streeting and Burnham all do it – talking about the damage Brexit has done to the economy. And yet allowing for inflation, the UK’s real trade growth is 11.4 per cent, more than double the EU’s at 5 per cent.

Brexit is not a panacea; having taken the decision to make our own laws we have to make good judgments and cannot blame foreign institutions or politicians. Greater direct accountability means no hiding place for British politicians – but that’s how it should be.

Why become Prime Minister if you are not prepared to use the sovereignty given to you by your own people, your own voters? There is an opportunity for a Labour leader to emerge who will champion the UK’s national interests to the benefit of the British people.

But until such a person appears – and maybe such a person no longer exists – Labour is going to face an existential wipeout at the polls.

Brian Monteith is a former member of the Scottish and European parliaments and editor of ThinkScotland.org