Over the last five months more and more positive noises about the relationship with the EU have been emanating from the Labour Government, the PLP and some Labour Mayors.
These include Starmer’s unfortunately dated 1st April speech and Reeves’ Mais Lecture speech.
Earlier this month even the Labour Movement for Europe has moved from its “anything but the single market” line, to a call to “Rip up the Redlines”, and for the European Movement, an organisation of 250,000 members, to call for the UK to rejoin the single market.
It’s unfortunate that the Government just can’t seem to meet the goals that its rhetoric sets, as seen by this report, in the Guardian where the Government’s big idea for rescuing the Reset is a “single market for goods”. It confirms what the House of Commons select committee said in a devastating and frank report, published on a web page entitled, ‘UK-EU reset lacks “direction, definition and drive”’. Its chairperson, Emily Thornberry, is quoted as saying
“Sadly, we found that despite progress in some areas, the Government’s reset is languishing, suffering from a lack of direction, definition and drive. It feels as though we are on a journey with no clear destination. In many areas, the Government has failed to provide timelines, milestones, or priorities and it does not appear to have an ambitious, strategic vision for the UK’s new relationship with the EU.”
Some contributions to the debate, seem to be an attempt to place a firewall between the views of Labour’s members and the majority of people in the country and the political direction of the government.
It might be pleasing to see Wes Streeting’s comments in the light of this movement within the Party and its supporters. He described it as a catastrophic mistake, but we need to recognise that this could be designed as a trap for Andy Burnham who has to win a by-election in an area that 10 years ago voted strongly to leave the EU. Certainly, Burnham’s response has not been particularly sure-footed.
Rejoining the EU needs a mandate, but rejoining the customs union and single market would be simple steps that do not and the coming European Partnership Bill may be a suitable vehicle to make these changes. Certainly the current Labour leadership lacks the ambition and vision to take this opportunity and also lacks the ability or motivation to understand what the EU wants.
Labour Left Internationalists 