Remain campaigning the day before the referendum vote. Geoff Caddick / Press Association. All rights reserved.It is becoming clear that Labour faces a potentially fatal
dilemma over its response to the Brexit vote, and above all to the question of
the free movement of people across borders. The deadly standoff between Jeremy
Corbyn and the majority of the Parliamentary Labour Party is supposed to be
about this issue, but sadly neither side offers a clear way forward.
Out of this hour of abject Tory failure will either come a
prime minister who supports Brexit (Michael Gove or Andrea Leadsom) or more
likely one who failed to campaign against it and opposes the European
Convention on Human Rights (Theresa May). There is a huge opportunity for
Labour if it does what oppositions should do: oppose.
The 48 per cent who voted to stay in the EU – more if we count
disillusioned Leavers – are looking for leadership. The last thing they want is
a precipitate triggering of Article 50, as Jeremy Corbyn suggested. They want
Parliament to do its job and secure the best European relationship possible.
The free movement
dilemma
Labour has to get free movement right or face probably critical
losses among either Remainers or Leavers – or both.
If it does not accept the implication of Leave’s success that
free movement should be restricted, at least in respect of incoming labour, Labour
risks alienating the minority (37 per cent according to the Ashworth poll) of
its current supporters who backed Brexit – as well as driving ex-Labour voters
in its heartlands even more firmly towards UKIP.
However by failing to support free movement, Labour risks
alienating the majority (63 per cent) of its current voting base and also the
centrist voters – repelled by Tory irresponsibility over the referendum – who
could give it the boost it needs to return it to power. A suddenly
reinvigorated Liberal Democrats stand ready to siphon off Labour’s support in
this direction.
Corbyn’s weak support
for Remain
Corbyn failed during the campaign, letting down the very people
who voted him in. My charge sheet would be as follows:
- He failed to articulate a broad internationalist case
for the European Union, restricting his support mainly to the narrow ground of
‘workers’ rights’. - He presented the threat in terms of how the Tories
would take advantage of Brexit to get rid of EU-guaranteed rights like maternity
leave, not in terms of the very clear and present threat of Brexit itself to
the free movement of people – one of the most precious rights of all for UK
workers, students, pensioners and others, as well as for other EU citizens. - He failed to react strongly to the outrageous racism of
the official Leave campaign as well as UKIP. Surely despite his ambivalence
over the EU, he could have led on this. - He avoided a prominent place in the TV coverage of the
referendum, failing to get major interviews (except for a late one on Sky) or a
role in one of the big debates. He simply did
not lead in the mass media, which is where the crucial exchanges were
happening, but preferred to speak to Labour rallies. - After the results, he was too quick to accept Brexit
and urge the triggering of Article 50, instead of pressing for time for
Parliament to define what the UK needs to aim for in negotiations with the EU.
Corbyn’s grassroot supporters – the Labour members and
supporters who voted him in – were strongly for Remain and many are genuinely
disoriented by his failure. John McDonnell is widely perceived to have
performed better, but his recent comment that free movement is over is also
ringing alarm bells.
A general Labour failure
This may seem to offer the way forward for the ‘coup’ now being
organised against Corbyn, but he has not been the only one to let Labour down.
There were some stirring Labour performances, for example by Sadiq Khan and
Frances O’Grady against Boris Johnson and co. on ITV. But Labour often came
over weakly – as in the unconfident and uninspiring contribution of new leadership
aspirant Angela Eagle – thereby allowing others to make a stronger case.
The Labour IN campaign was drab and directed too much at trade
union activists, not the wider public. Deputy leader Tom Watson was virtually
invisible. Former deputy leader Harriet Harman trailed David Cameron almost as
closely as the unctuous Gisela Stuart trailed Boris Johnson, failing to make a
strong independent case.
In a revealing moment, Harman joked with Cameron about Tory
responsibility for the NHS crisis, instead of pressing the point home in a way
that would have underlined the falsity of Leave’s claim to give £350 million a
weak to the NHS.
Overall, Labour – Corbyn and others – may have made enough
noise to reinforce the inclination of most existing Labour voters to back
Remain. Certainly the fact that SNP voters split for Remain by an almost
identical 64:36, despite a much more coherent campaign, suggests that Labour’s
weakness did not lose a lot of votes.
However we shall never know whether a strong, assertive, united
Labour campaign might have swung more voters Remain’s way.
The PLP appeases UKIP
voters
Worst of all, in the aftermath of the vote, Labour politicians
have fallen over themselves to imply that we need restrictions on migration,
which would mean abandoning the free movement of people. It is supremely ironic
that many Blairite and Brownite MPs, who criticise Corbyn for failing to reach
out to the middle ground, seem mainly concerned with protecting the UKIP flank.
Leading figures across the board appear to be rushing to
appease anti-migrant ex-Labour voters, but offer little to the upset,
frustrated and angry 48 per cent. As anyone who has talked to Remainers knows,
there are many who have previously voted Tory and Lib Dem who are desperate for
leadership.
This is probably the first opportunity since Blair’s disastrous
Iraq venture fractured Labour’s support for Labour to reconstruct the alliance
of left and centre which Blairites reminisce about. Many Remainers are so eager
for someone to rally around that any Labour leader – even Corbyn – who stepped
up would command attention. It is incredible that Labour should hand this
opportunity to the Lib Dems.
Putting a positive case
to Leavers
Labour does need, of course, to address its Leave voters and
ex-voters, especially in the North, Midlands and Wales. But as the assassinated
MP Jo Cox knew, it will not do this in a race to the bottom which UKIP will
always win. Labour has a real UKIP problem, but it will deal with it by
fighting UKIP, not following it.
Labour needs to show that it has real answers to Leavers’
concerns. It needs to say that migration is not a numbers game, but about real
people with families. It needs to put forward
strong proposals for extra NHS, school, housing and other resources for
communities most affected by immigration (Corbyn rightly made the point that
the Tories had cut the special funding for these communities, but the case
needs to be made strongly and positively).
Labour needs also to point out to non-racist Leavers, and even
soft racists, the shocking racist abuse and violence that the Tory and UKIP
Leave campaigns have created.
Solving the Labour
crisis
It is clear that in our first-past-the post electoral system,
Labour needs to remain a coalition of left and centre-left if it is to ever win
an election again. A split would let the Tories off the serious hook on which
they have impaled themselves and could wreck Labour for decades – or even for
good.
It would be grossly irresponsible of either Corbyn and his
supporters or the PLP majority not to look for genuine compromise, possibly
along the lines of the deal apparently discussed last week. Labour’s leader
cannot lose most of his MPs, but nor can the MPs afford to alienate the
hundreds of thousands of new members and supporters who will be the key to
Labour’s revival as a party.
The EU referendum and its aftermath has shown that Corbyn is a
weak leader, but it has also shown much of the PLP in a poor light. Labour
needs to find a way of moving on without splitting, so that it can defend all
that is best in our European Union membership as a Conservative government with
a very shaky majority begins to deal with the mess that its leaders – Cameron,
Osborne, Johnson, Gove and May – have created.
