Labour should reverse on not reversing Brexit. By sticking to the ‘art of the possible’ and accepting Brexit, Keir Starmer is doing the nation a disservice.
Labour should reverse on not reversing Brexit. By sticking to the ‘art of the possible’ and accepting Brexit, Keir Starmer is doing the nation a disservice.
48 comments
The second you mention brexit you drive voters to the Tories, it is an impossible deal. Yes, Brexit is a terrible idea, everyone knows this but the problem isn’t solvable just now.
Until the UK accepts the damage done by Brexit, we’ll struggle to tackle our major economic issues. The polls are showing that anti-Brexit sentiment is rising fast. Labour needs to be careful that it’s not left behind by this change in public opinion.
That ship has long sailed. Time to take a different approach, I think Starmer is right to accept the result and work with what we now have rather than long for the impossible.
Nah
The Tory party would batter Labour Party with this idea, there’s a good chance labour will win the next election if they try this that chance goes to shit.
gonna take a long time to rejoin the EU, I do wonder if Scotland get independence then join the EU that could maybe help (couple of big ifs)
Not reversing brexit doesn’t preclude rejoining the single market/custom union. The referendum was about no longer being a member of the EU.
Refighting battles you have already lost is never a good idea.
The situation will probably change in the coming years but there are bigger fish to fry at the moment.
That would be a mistake.
There is no reversing Brexit, full stop.
It would be a campaign to rejoin. The UK would have to take on the the aquis in it’s entirety, status ex ante **is not available**.
I’m not sure the UK will ever get over itself and embrace this reality.
Starmer should however be more explicit in opposing the tory brexit and point out the unnecessary *additional* economic, political, scientific and diplomatic damage being done because of HMGs obfuscations over the NIP.
The DUP’s rejection of an election result because the other side won should also be opposed and called out much louder and more explicitly by someone in the UK to try and save *some* of its democratic and rule of law authority..
The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results. Kier Starmer is doing the right thing, he’s trying to actually win an election.
I don’t think it’s realistic at all to reverse Brexit. Even if a Labour government were to try it, the EU would remain so controversial and such a right-wing punching bag that we would forever have one foot over the exit.
The EU would be wise to refuse our application and try to shift us into EEA or EFTA so as to repair the economic relationships without taking the risk of too close a political relationship. Inside the EU, a rejoined UK would always be a deadweight slowing down cooperation and threatening at every stage to leave again.
Don’t forget that the Brexit vote was not called out of necessity. But rather to forward the career of some Tory politicians and it completely back fired. Self criticism is key in a functional democracy. We can’t ignore the obvious just because a bunch of disgruntled old people voted in some referendum 6 years ago. If labour was a true opposition party they would stand for the true democratic ideals rather than play politics in this time of crisis.
Give it another 5 years then via demographic shift a rejoin referendum might not be political suicide, but its too soon now despite how bad brexit has been
Don’t think the EU would even entertain rejoining without numerous guarantees that would never pass. Time to move on.
We lost that one in the last election, guys. Let’s not give the Tories an easy way to claw back the voters they’re hemorrhaging at the moment.
By reversing their position on the reversal, we can get the country moving forward again!
The next election is not about Brexit and the EU, despite how much the Tories and the guardian want to make it about that.
It’s about surviving as a country, getting rid of austerity, finally taxing the top earners correctly. It’s about getting rid of the sh*tshow we’ve had for the past 12 years
Here it is again – “accepting Brexit”. As if there is any choice. It’s done, accepting Brexit means accepting reality.
Any journey towards joining the EU again will be long and tedious.
The current harsh and hard Brexit will last for years to come.
Maybe there’s scope to ease the pain in the next 5-10 years but a Customs Union, joining the SM or EU is a long way out.
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Starmer knows the left will vote Labour, he doesn’t have to persuade them as we’re so desperate for the Tories to be out.
The past year he’s been shifting the party more right each day, to the point we’re just ending up with the centre right Tories we had in 2010.
Its a lose-lose situation, working out the very way a FPTP system is designed.
Creative geniuseses at the guardian unearthing new and interesting topics for us to debate.
If you want the Tories to lose the next election then you need anyone with a chance of beating them to stay as far away from the EU/Brexit as possible. It sucks but that’s how it is. Maybe years from now there’ll be the political will to go back currently it’s just an own goal and another 5 years of Tory rule.
Eh, the population is too stupid to accept this proposition.
While it is becoming painfully apparent that voting for brexit was a foolish idea, trying to get people to accept they may have screwed up is a fools errand.
Also, the EU would never accept the UK back. At least not if they’ve got sense.
If Labour really want to torpedo their chances at the next election then campaigning on undoing Brexit has got to be the no. 1 way to do it.
Hard no.
Reopening brexit wounds is the very last thing we need right now.
Clear David Mitchell is forgetting that the chance for Brexit is what drove many labour voters to the Tories.
It’s a fucking shambles and unfortunately the only way to please everyone is to both sides it.
The best thing Labour can do about Brexit right now is agree to carry out Brexit but to set benchmarks that assess its success based on areas of economic concern, possibly give people a chance to discuss what a successful Brexit looks like to them.
As Frankie Boyle said;
If there’s any man that can lose a 30 point lead, its this guy.
His position is shrewd: improving our relationship with Europe; maintaining regulatory alignment. Then, in the long-term, if public opinion overwhelmingly favours rejoining, we will be well placed. This approach doesn’t present such a barrier to Brexit voters returning to Labour.
I mean I get it, but refusing to revisit bad decisions seems like the way we stay in this rut indefinitely, and it becomes the new normal. I feel like the future of the nation depends on us getting out of this rut of refusing to second-guess our stupider impulses, because those stupid impulses are quintessentially British and therefore infallible.
I feel like we’re gonna have to stop saying “well yeah but…” and kicking the can down the road sometime. It’s just a matter of how bad things will get before we finally decide to.
To early to be talking about rejoining the EU besides we would have to accept Schengen, Euro + more that we opted out before. However negotiating a closer arrangement is always a possibility.
He is right of centre no doubt where British politics needs a harder left which is unfortunate because the balance of democracy is fairer
He has to win an election, and brexit doesn’t allow our politics to operate in reality at the moment.
>The Guardian
It’s like a checklist for them, “Hammer in we must rejoin the EU” being the top of every one of their writer’s to do list for the day
If anything would persuade Brexit voters to turn out for a brown Prime Minister, it’d be turning the 2025 election into ***the third general election in a row*** that’s effectively a re-run of the 2016 Brexit referendum
A decade from now, everyone who cared strongly about Brexit will be **dead**
If Labour were to do so they’d be ignoring the will of the British people and driving voters away. In any case reversing Brexit is not something Labour can do since it would require the EU to accept the UK back in the Union. Holding a Rejoin referendum won’t reverse Brexit.
Even if Starmer won with a re-join mandate, it would take decades. Specially if UK wants a good deal, not what tories negotiated on their trade deals.
The inteligent thing is stop the bleeding, stabilice UK, undo or mitigate the disaster that the tories have done, and start the path to recovery; That path might lead to the EU, but it’s a long path.
You can’t just “reverse” Brexit though… We can’t go back to how we were…
Which means you would have to promote full EU membership including no veto and a single currency.
Otherwise the EU will just reject us.
So starmer is right to say it’s not possible
It doesn’t seem there’s an option to reverse it on the table. Even if it wasn’t political cryptonite we still can’t get back the deal we had
Of course the objectively best thing is to undo Brexit, but doing so would allow the Tories to make 2024 into a single issue election like 2019 was.
Starmer isn’t an idiot, he knows the best practical solution is to align with the EU and subtly integrate our economies again, but without sticking the label of rejoining on it.
Then in 10 years time when we’re in the EU in all but name, we can point to the benefits of undoing Brexit and use it as hard evidence to rejoin.
Stop mentioning Brexit. Talk about global Britain and Britain being a part of European trading bloc makes sense. Say things like EU aligning their standards with ours and freedom of movement means holidaying in Ibiza or Berlin. But at all costs don’t mention the B word; it’s like mentioning your opponent in a political campaign.
The public is too stupid to deal with this openly and honestly.
He’s trying to actually win an election, which involves winning Tory votes.
This seems difficult for many to understand.
Just look at where the Tories have come from since they got elected with Cameron. Get into power first, then make incremental changes.
Brexit happened. Campaigning on a promise to reverse the irreversible is foolish. It may appeal to Guardian journalists who bemoan the fact that their children can no longer summer in Florence on Erasmus, but ordinary people have other concerns.
I hate that Brexit happened. But isn’t it time to move forward. Rather than getting bogged down in years of negotiation, labour should start something new and try to do something that benefits our lives. Otherwise I’ll be coming upto retirement and lk 60% of my working life would have been overshadowed by shit economy and brexit.
Starmer doing a disservice? The tories haven’t been doing multiple disservices?
Starmer seems to be obsessed with “Me too”ing every policy position the tories have. He’s positioned himself as the Tory you can’t vote for without admitting it to yourself.
If the main parties don’t reverse brexit then a lot of people will vote for rejoin the eu party because 57 percent want to rejoin the eu and there is a case for rejoining the eu like trade and Northern Ireland protocol and and Scotland being forced out of the eu by uk Parliament so their is a case for rejoining and its not suicidal at all
In my opinion, Keir Stammer avoids Brexit discussion as part of the campaign strategy, because it would only give fuel for attacks to Tories and the usual tabloids/newspapers. The same with refusing to support the workers strikes. Because they would mean Labour cannot concentrate on their core campaign, but are forced to explain and defend their position, which would be simply a distraction.
Reversing brexit is exactly what the Tories need to stoke the next GE into a single topic issue – save brexit.
Better for labour to forge ahead with the “brexit is done, lets more on” approach. They can work on rejoining the Single Market in time, that will be more palatable to those that voted leave and may be possible if you consider the EU’s expectations.
We’ll be worse off than rejoining, but better off than this hard brexit shit.
I’m sorry but I don’t think Europe is even opening to talking to the uk right now. It’s not a matter of not wanting to undo Brexit it’s a matter of the fact it won’t be possible for some time if ever