brexit – Page 9 – davelevy.info

At long last we have a Brexit deal – and it’s as bad as you thought

The UK Government and the Commission have agreed a Free Trade Agreement, it is reviewed by Tom Kibasi in a piece in the Guardian and the Commission have produced a simple info graphic. I highlight some quotes from the Kibasi article, which touch on Starmer’s disgraceful and stupid plan to whip the PLP behind this deal. Once again we are doing what those who do not vote for us want, not what those that do.

EU-UK Trade and Cooperation Agreement: protecting European interests, ensuring fair competition, and continued cooperation in areas of mutual interest. Read more: https://t.co/WB0UwSOsjN pic.twitter.com/zBTSaLhYH8
— European Commission (@EU_Commission) December 24, 2020

Here are some quotes from Kibasi’s article …

We already know its contours: a barely-there treaty that will make trade harder and destroy jobs. Labour should oppose it …
It was Labour’s abject failure to arrive at any coherent political position on Brexit in the last parliament that was one of the many reasons for its dire showing at the polls in December 2019. …
But the plan to vote for the deal shares the same political thinking as Labour’s disastrous embrace of austerity under Ed Miliband – where the same Westminster logic led it to follow polling rather than to show leadership. Do not expect the electorate to thank Labour for abandoning its principles and voting in favour of a deal that will damage Britain. They won’t. …
Convictions in politics matter. Had the 2016 referendum gone the other way, does anyone seriously imagine that Tory Brexiters would say they had to accept the result and march through the lobbies in favour of the latest EU treaty? Voting in favour of a shoddy deal will surely dampen the enthusiasm of many of Labour’s supporters, the vast majority of whom have always been rightly hostile to the hard-right Brexit project.Failing to oppose the Tory Brexit deal will leave Labour mute for years to come as the damage unfolds, unable to prosecute its central argument to sack the Tories. …
A thumping majority for the Brexit deal would hand Johnson precisely the “reset” moment that his rocky premiership so desperately needs. It would see the prime minister end a torrid year with endorsement not only of his deal but also the disgraceful tactics he employed to secure it.
Tom Kibasi – The Guradian 24 DEC 2020

Minds may have been concentrated by Macron closing the UK border, the chaos of turning Kent into both a toilet and lorry park to the chorus of headlines such as, “Brexiters left stunned after several EU countries demonstrate easy control of their own borders“, from News Arse.

More seriously and on a personal note, Erasmus has gone (except for Northern Ireland), recognition of professional qualifications has gone, as have pet passports and stays of over 90 days require a visa. We’ll have to see what happens with flights although it seems they’ve kicked it into the grass, although it seems intra-eu flights will be stopped (for airlines, I assume). They are fudging the reciprocal health care arrangements which might stay in place. We are out of all the police co-operation programmes because we won’t accept the Court of Justice of the EU. The New European in an article entitled, “The long and winding road (back to the EU)” enumerates the gaps from the current status quo.

I am looking to see what disputes resolution and monitoring arrangements are being put in place. I know there are some and the deal would seem to give the EU an exit point if the UK leaves the ECHR,

I am in two minds how I feel about being trapped in Great Britain, but I offer my solidarity to those EU citizens whose rights in the UK have and will be diminished.

What are Lewisham Labour with its sanctuary borough programme doing? …

Not the remainers!

Owen Jones obviously felt the need to project himself into the stickiest mess that he could in the Labour Party. Well, the second stickiest mess actually. He published an article, Hard remainers wouldn’t accept a soft Brexit. Now we’re all paying the price, in the Guardian. It was subtitled, “Anything other than stopping Brexit was written off as both disastrous for the country and morally untenable”. His article has been picked up the usual culprit’s outriders allowing them to revisit their story of “Remainer Betrayal”. There’s just one problem with this story, it’s complete bollocks!

Jones summarised part of the story well,

Both the intransigence of prominent leavers and the refusal of leading remainers to accept a compromise succeeded in polarising the electorate. By the European elections, Labour was out of any good options, and Corbyn and his key parliamentary allies believed there was no choice but to back a new referendum. They were right: the Labour membership wanted one, and Corbyn’s political project was founded on accepting they were sovereign, and remain voters had defected en masse to the Liberal Democrats and Greens. The remain movement had succeeded in its aim – forcing the Labour party to accept its central demand – but at a huge cost to Corbyn: the leader was left looking like an unprincipled zigzagger, contributing to the collapse in his personal ratings. Labour lost the election partly because of the errors of its leaders; but those prominent remainers share a considerable amount of the blame.
Owen Jones, the Guardian (Hyperlinks are theirs)

I am not sure that he represents the causality correctly in his first sentence, I’d argue the absolute refusal of leavers to countenance a final say referendum, dating from May’s “Brexit means Brexit” speech pushed remainers to a harder position, though I can’t see why I shouldn’t have asked for a final say since the referendum’s Leave vote encompassed everyone from those who wanted a Norway style deal through to those that wanted us to become the 51^st state. Jones and others also conveniently ignores the proven criminality of the Vote Leave campaign.

Before blaming Labour’s remainers, we should look at how the PLP’s leavers torpedoed three of the meaningful vote options, inc. a 2^nd referendum. There was no deal on the table from May, even when Labour dropped its six tests for the new red lines; the Tory Govt., would not or could not come to an agreement. Jones’ and others’ idea that Labour should have agreed with May’s deal was not possible and is as likely to have caused today’s problems to the Good Friday Agreement.

The road to the general election of 2019 was also set by the supporters of Labour’s “general election first” policy i.e. before a final say referendum and from where I am standing this reflected a remain/leave split, Labour’s leavers, ignoring the weight of the member’s views and that of our voters used every tool they had to win their ‘Lexit’ position; for them soft-brexit and 2^nd referendum weren’t good enough, partly because they feared the result of the latter. Also hugely to blame was the unprincipled behaviour of the LibDems and SNP in permitting the election before parliament had closed out a no-deal option, and in the case of the LibDems, their ludicrous grandstanding on Brexit.

While the country moved away from a soft-brexit, and polarised to where it was last year, it wasn’t Labour’s Remainers who were primarily at fault. Our committed leavers gave others permission to vote Tory and the state of their parties was and remains a disgrace. …

Why did nothing come out of the Brexit meaningful votes?

When the last Parliament had its Brexit meaningful votes, nothing passed. I wrote about the politics and consequences and said that others would write about Labour and the TINGE, it’s taken until now. My article is mainly just reporting but it seems I wanted a 2nd Referendum in which I would have campaigned for remain, The question I ask today is what would have happened if Labour’s No voters had voted Yes, the chart below shows what would have happened.

See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parliamentary_votes_on_Brexit#Second_Round_of_Indicative_Votes_(1_April_2019)

A requirement for a 2nd Referendum, the Customs Union and the so-called Common Market 2.0 which contained most of the single market commitments would have passed if Labour’s No voters had voted Yes. This isn’t a Labour problem made by Remainers.

I should add the other’s No votes to see the blame shared by the Lib Dems & SNP, maybe tomorrow and we should note that there were 91 Labour abstentions on the vote on Parliamentary Supremacy, (represented in Wikipedia as “Revocation of Article 50 to avoid No Deal”), enough to have changed the result but I have assumed otherwise that all abstentions were pairings and would not have made a difference. …

Oppositions oppose, do not vote for Boris’s Trade Deal

I wrote today to my MP and to Sir Kier Starmer about the proposal to vote with the Govt on any trade deal with the EU. The words were originally drafted by the Labour Movement for Europe. In Vicky's case this is not the first time I have written to her on this subject, the text of the letter/email is overleaf.

How to fix the Labour Party

I am considering getting involved in a so-called debate about Lavery, Tricket and Smith’s recent revision of their No Holding Back report, which has been seized with alacrity by the usual suspects, possibly unfairly; it seems more nuanced than its authors and fans suggest but I may not be reading it sufficiently well. I am reminded of the Data Praxis report, Tory Landslide, Progressives Split, which shows how it might have been worse and blames our FPTP electoral system. I precis them by saying,

“Labour lost because, Leavers in Labour seats, switched to the Tories, but more Labour Remainers from 2017 switched; Corbyn (& the manifesto) were now unpopular and thus too many Tory Remainers stayed with the Tories.
Dave Levy

We should also note that Lavery, Tricket and Smith do not mention Scotland; it’s not their expertise but there’s no answer without the Scots.

While looking at what to say, and for help in understanding the problem, I was concerned to be truthful at the state of the red wall parties’ health, but it seems hard to get the local contact rates, which will all be poor nor to get the member/voter ratio. I looked at Labour Together’s report, again to see if they said anything useful about local Party organisation/structure and campaigning. This is difficult to be honest about because of the back office chicanery in Labour HQ on 2017 & 2019 and the myths and maybe truths about how Momentum’s volunteer organisation saved us in 2017 get in the way. They i.e. Labour Together don’t say anything useful or concrete about CLP organisation. We should also note that the Democracy Review did nothing to improve local campaigning effectiveness either. Perhaps we should be listening to Crispin Flintoff on his campaign to fund CLPs properly.

About the Labour Together report, I found this, at Immigration News, which pulls no punches. I say, using their words,

[the] New Labour Together Report investigates Labour’s 2019 Election Defeat with crushing honesty – but glosses over senior saboteurs behind the Labour Leaks dossier. A 150-page report published this week by research group Labour Together serves up some stone-cold truths and analysis in what may have led to Labour’s downfall in the 2019 General Election. “
Olivia Bridge – Immigration news JUne 2020

I have written about “What happened?”, and created a reading list tagged “ge2019” on my diigo feed, and to remind me and others of what wise people said, I also reproduce the Electoral Calculus chart on where votes came and went.

I have made a sankey chart from this, it would seem that this chart is for England & Wales only, but for other source notes, you’ll need to check out the original article.

The Labour Together report is strong on the need to get the strategy right; I think we may need to end the factionalism first and recognise the members must have the first and last word but we also need to resolve the fault lines in our coalition, because much of the pro-Brexit positions came from Labour politicians on the right of the party whose heritage is the “Control Immigration” mug and future road is that of Blue Labour, “work, family, community”. Adopting this sort of rubbish and its racist sub-text will jeopardise Labour’s city heartlands, apart from just being wrong. …

Reeves on the EU

Rachel Reeves, Labour’s shadow spokesperson for the Cabinet Office, made a speech/webcast about Labour’s current Brexit policy, reviewed in Labour List, with the headline, ‘“We won’t be back in the EU”: Rachel Reeves sets out Labour’s Brexit policy’. It just raises the question, where did she get the mandate? It seems she believes that we have returned to the days when Labour’s policy emerged from the back pockets of the front bench spokespeople. This is not why I joined the Labour Party and to go from remain, to only leave if the terms are acceptable, to saying that the UK would not be back in the European Union under a Labour government, without even stating why the Tories deal and strategy is harmful, is shameful and gives evidence to those on the left who say that the people’s vote was merely a trojan horse to undermine the Corbyn project.

Her statement ignores, of course, freedom of movement, Erasmus, flight regulations, and the European Medical Agency and it all assumes that we get a trade deal. We can see the Tories, are not going to sign a reasonable deal and Labour should be putting our stake in the ground, otherwise any deal will seem a victory and even if shite, people will ask where we were.

This policy position will also test the theory that a pro-brexit promise will win more votes than it gains. It’ll go down like a ton of shit in a fan factory in Scotland and London. It must be remembered that Reeves has form for stretching Labour’s consensus, her time as shadow spokesperson on welfare include some disgraceful speeches and I have previously reported on her channelling of Enoch Powell. Giving her a second chance was a mistake. …

Where’s Labour on the future deal with the EU.

While most attention is on the Govt’s response to the pandemic, and while expecting a reimposition of the lockdown, the second part of the the triple whammy is the looming end of the Brexit Transition agreement. What are Labour doing? Certainly not making so much noise. Here’s the FT on Kier Starmer’s response, which it headlines as “Getting Brexit Done!” on the basis of his speech to the TUC. Labour’s front bench spokesperson on Brexit is Rachel Reeves, who now it seems doesn’t really want to speak about it. While Starmer seems keen to ensure a visibly effective performance in Parliament, which seems to be paying off in the polls, as Labour draws even at 40%, it requires the acquiescence of the press to break through and both Reeves and Starmer were outshone by Ed Miliband in opposing the 2nd reading of the Internal Market Bill. Too much of Labour’s parliamentary attack position is based on competence, the failure of the Tories to meet their own goals without even addressing the issues of cronyism and accountability or more importantly of a vision of how things could be better.

But then the Remain campaign has disappeared, (or the Guardian’s view if you prefer), giving some on Labour’s Left, the evidence they always wanted that the Remain campaign was an anti-corbyn trojan horse. Not for me! But Parliament has voted to allow the Govt. to negotiate the trade deals without asking Parliament to agree, and the Govt. refused to ask for a transition extension despite the CV19 pandemic. These are both opportunities missed.

If we get a deal, it’s going to be pretty shit. …

Schadenfreude

I should have more sympathy, but Unite’s United Left,, have just conducted an e-ballot, to determine who should be the UL’s candidate for General Secretary when Len McClusky stands down, which will have to be in the next two years. McClusky and his close supporters prefer Howard Beckett, currently Director of Legal and Politics, and he is being opposed by Steve Turner, the Union’s most senior industrial organiser, and currently Assistant General Secretary. E-Ballots are hard to run, particularly over the internet. Beckett lost be three votes and is claiming that the ballot should be re-run; I, of course, am laughing my arse off, as so many of Beckett’s supporters and he himself, felt that over Brexit, the I and the rest of the British people should be denied a ‘final say’ by having a re-run of the referendum, 🤣 …

Post Brexit Citizenship

I attended the LME/New Europeans webinar on citizenship and Brexit yesterday, here is what I heard and learned.

There are political and economic demands, if we look at the political demands, they include

Citizenship rights for all residents, including the right to vote
The need for a fast and cheap route for citizenship, many residents have been here for decades
The UK currently permits dual citizenship, this should be retained and we need to argue that those European states that prohibit it should allow foreigners to have dual citizenship, this will benefit those in the UK and UK citizens in the EU
The current legal regime in the UK means that the hostile environmemnt will be extended to many EU citizens who are long term residents, it shows the injustice of the hostile environment; it must be repealed and both the health surcharge and NRPF must be abolished.
Access to Erasmus must be maintained.

Three insights were offered about the UK’s european diaspora, 80% of it are of working age, the stripping of their votes after 15 years absence is hurtful and demeaning. The likely loss of intra-European/Schengen freedom of movement is also a significant loss of rights.

How does Labour and its progressive allies work to defend the rights of its European diaspora.

British citizenship and naturalisation rules need to be exemplary and include voting rights for all residents and then we can argue for reciprocal citizenship rights. The post transition agreements need to ensure that British Citizens in the EU keep their rights to free movement. ( The proposed retaining of the British Isles Common Travel Area might be an effective precedent and enabler for this change.) Once the UK is behaving decently, then it might be possible to argue for fast track citizenship processes for British citizens resident in the EU. (Most European countries will need to consider their language qualification rules, as will the UK if it wants reciprocity.

One of the problems with the reforms immediately above is that it would seem to be Tory Party policy to retain our unfair and racist immigration rules, and thus changing them to make reciprocity worth offering will be politically very difficult.

Another reform in the EU which would make life easier for the UK diaspora would be movement towards a common social security policy. The irony being that this might be more likely now we’re out than if we’d stayed, although, still not easy. …

Why Labour lost, again

On Friday, Ed Miliband released his report into Labours GE 2019, you can find it here, Paul Mason and Phil BC comment on it here (Paul), here (Phil) & here (Phil again)., and the tanks, cranks and so-called Lexiters see this as a reason for attacking Starmer and Labour’s majority Remainers.

This, “The Man or The Manifesto? Labour Together Report Shows Uphill Battle for the Party’s Survival” on immigration news is also worth reading. …