Scarlet Spectrum. The divisions within the parliamentary Labour Party on Brexit strategy

Another Bank Holiday weekend is over, the House of Commons is back in session and the dialogue between the Conservative Party and Labour Party has resumed again. Theresa May has declared that the message of the local elections last week (at which her party suffered eye-watering losses but the blow was softened by Labour enduring a modest retreat in seats as well) is that the public wants Brexit to be ‘fixed’ as soon as possible. Labour is not sure that it agrees with this analysis.
Indeed, a set of council contests where the most striking element was how well independents of no known view on Brexit did compared with the major parties is hard to audit forensically. Despite this, the dance at Westminster between the Government and the Opposition will continue for a while longer, even if the principal purpose is less a ‘deal’ between them than an understanding as to what sort of arrangement neither of them would mind if a majority in Parliament ‘imposed’ upon them. If victory has a thousand fathers and defeat is an orphan, a Brexit bargain between the establishment parties right now is a notion that no one wants to admit having attended a sperm donors’ clinic for.
This is in large part, and very obviously, because of the divisions within the Conservative Party inside the House of Commons. A significant additional factor, and less well understood, is the factionalism inside the Parliamentary Labour Party (PLP), an array of opinion which is arguably more complicated than that which can be seen on the Government side, and which may sink any idea of a cross-party pact.
To acquire a sense of this split it might be of value to try and capture it through seven individuals.
Jeremy Corbyn
The core Corbynite camp has a distinct if rarely publicly stated instinct on Brexit. First, it, like the Labour leader himself, has historically been antagonistic to the European Union. Brussels is seen as bureaucratic, centrist and incremental in policy practice. If not quite the ‘capitalist club’ that Mr Corbyn denounced decades ago, it is still viewed as operating in, to coin a term, “Blerkel” terrain (the political space between Tony Blair and Angela Merkel) and is thus is not a good thing at all.
Second, Brexit is seen as a huge distraction from the real Labour agenda under Mr Corbyn, which should be to campaign ceaselessly against austerity at home and American foreign policy abroad. The sole virtue of the current political situation is the extent to which it convulses the Conservatives and makes an earlier general election, at which the revolution might prevail, a possibility.
Finally, while the Dear Leader is willing to play lip service to a second referendum, his closest supporters (notably Seamus Milne) hate the idea and would not want to have to deliver it let alone spend any of their political capital on remaining in the EU when that might irritate potentially pro-Leave Labour voters. To summarise, the JC Crew do not really mind Brexit but want the Tories to endure the agony over it.
John McDonnell
On this one there is a tactical (and perhaps strategic) split between the Labour leader and his long-term political ally the Shadow Chancellor. First, Mr McDonnell starts from a slightly less negative stance viz the EU than Mr Corbyn. He does not object to it in principle as strongly but he is very interested in whether or not state aid rules would or would not make a ‘socialism in one country’ model in the United Kingdom harder to operate. That is his litmus test.
Second, Mr McDonnell is at least open to the idea that the ‘capitalist counterattack’ on a Labour Government of his ilk (the withdrawal of key individuals, an investment strike, a collapse of the currency) might be easier to avert if the UK were closer to the EU rather than further away from it.
Finally, he is more willing to sound less agnostic to a second referendum so as to make it harder for those flirting with bolting from the Labour Party to Change UK to have an alibi for that decision. In that, he is different to some of the pure Corbynites who welcome their defection as it avoids the need to deselect them as MPs.
Tom Watson
The Deputy Leader of the Labour Party is in the unusual political position in that he is the unofficial Leader of the Opposition to the official Leader of the Opposition. Mr Watson has become an almost evangelical convert to the idea that any proposal for the first stage of the exit from the EU (whether a Tory one or a more bi-partisan compromise) has to be subject to a confirmatory vote to be legitimate. This is doubtless a sincerely held intellectual conviction (if not what he articulated in 2016) but there is the suspicion that it is also motivated by the desire to undermine Mr Corbyn by engineering a deep split between the older and younger Corbynites, and between the Corbyn contingent and the majority of the trade union movement (who are more pro-EU). Labour politics trumps EU politics in his instance.
Sir Keir Starmer
Sir Keir is the unacknowledged leader of what might be described as the ‘Insider Remainers’. This is the segment of the PLP who are willing to serve in a Corbyn Shadow Team (with which they have no sympathy) in order to place their imprint on various aspects of policy (not least re Brexit). Sir Keir is hence the most articulate, effective and obvious advocate from within the Shadow Cabinet for his party backing a second referendum, putting the option of Remain on the ballot and championing it. Whether this will ultimately prevail is pretty doubtful and he may well end up having to quit over it. Emily Thornberry, the Shadow Foreign Secretary, is in a similar place but prefers to be more reticent.
Hilary Benn
Mr Benn, a well-respected former Cabinet Minister and Chair of the House of Commons Select Committee on Brexit, is the informal shop steward for those who might be called the ‘Outsider Remainers’. This contingent would rather serve in the French Foreign Legion than under Mr Corbyn. This makes them separate from the likes of Sir Keir and co above. They have come round to the view that a second referendum is credible and essential, and though it took a while for them to do so, their conversion to that cause is real and is not (unlike the Watsonites) open to the charge that it is more motivated by internal politics than external principle. This lobby would now be hard to mobilise for any May-Corbyn formula (overt or more probably covert) as it takes the view that a Remain triumph at the second attempt is entirely possible and worth betting the farm in order to attempt to achieve..
Yvette Cooper
Although she would not care to concede it, Ms Cooper is the public face for those Labour MPs who are undoubtedly moderates, disconnected from the Corbyn leadership but unconvinced about the second referendum solution. They would prefer (unless evidence of a much bigger shift in public opinion on Brexit occurs) to look for the softest sort of Brexit that they might get away with. That would be ‘Norway Plus’ or ‘Common Market 2.0’. To keep that option in play they will do anything they can (including taking over the timetable of the House of Commons as they did last month) to avoid a no-deal Brexit occurring. Conservative admirers secretly call Cooperites ‘the grown-ups’.
Lisa Nandy
Labour MP for Wigan since 2010, Ms Nandy is the least well-known of the seven figures here. But she has emerged as the spokesperson for those Labour MPs who, while they might be Remainers themselves, represent constituencies which are, as a rule, working-class, Northern or Midlands and staunchly pro-Leave. This set of about 25 parliamentarians want a negotiated Brexit that limits any damage but is also a ‘real’ Brexit and not a LINO (Leave In Name Only), and they are dead against a second referendum. They are much less enthusiastic than the Cooper contingent about sticking with the single market (their voters want shot of freedom of movement/mass immigration) but could be courted over staying in ‘a’ (possibly even ‘the’) Customs Union as this is not a matter that is much discussed in the watering holes of places such as Wigan. Although most MPs in this segment are not wild about Mr Corbyn (nor are their electors), in many ways they would be the easiest to mobilise to endorse a ‘can’t we get this bloody thing over with?’ informal cross-party understanding on Brexit.
Having set out these seven stances it may be clearer why Labour’s position on Brexit is so unclear.
Tim Hames
Director General, BVCA