A People’s Vote or a General Election: how does Johnson’s new deal change things

There is a big debate at the moment among those who support a People’s Vote (PV) about whether it should become before or after a General Election (GE). Let’s assume for now there are sufficient MPs willing to vote for the PV before a GE option, and that Johnson prefers a GE which he thinks he can win so there would be no PV. From a Remain point of view, should a GE or PV come first.

I last discussed this when a Johnson deal was dead and there was talk of the Conservatives advocating No Deal in a General Election. I made the point, which those advocating a PV before a GE do not appear to have considered, that if parliament passed a PV before a GE Johnson could boycott that PV. As I was told at the time that I was not living in the real world, let me explain why I think a Johnson boycott would have been almost inevitable.

Consider Johnson’s options if parliament force him to hold a PV before a GE where May’s deal is on the ballot. If he accepts the ballot’s legitimacy, he is in an impossible position. Does he try and campaign for a deal that he himself voted against twice? Farage will certainly describe the ballot as illegitimate, and that would damage Johnson's prospects in the forthcoming GE. If he wins he gets May’s deal, probably a split in the Conservative party and a loss at the GE. If he loses he loses Brexit, which is his main asset in any GE

In contrast, if he says the ballot is illegitimate he protects his Farage front, and can continue to run an election based on parliament versus the people. His excuse for a boycott is obvious: who wants May’s deal? With no one recognisable prepared to argue the case for May’s deal, the ballot begins to look like a farce. Remain might get a vote greater than 17 million, but it is more likely the inevitability of a Remain victory means some Remainers do not bother to vote. I’m afraid those suggesting a boycott wouldn’t happen in those circumstances do not know how Johnson and Cummings work.

You might think that even with a Johnson boycott it is still worth it. If you think it would end Brexit I have bad news. If Johnson wins a GE having boycotted a PV he will say the PV was illegitimate and restart A50. With a majority in parliament Brexit (either very hard or No Deal) becomes a certainty. All the PV would have done is delay the inevitable. 

The critical question then becomes what impact a PV might have on the GE result. Will it reduce Johnson’s vote because some Leavers think the game is up, or will it fire up his Leaver base who feel they have been cheated out of the 2016 result. The latter is what the Brexit press and most Tory and all Farage politicians will tell them. I don't know the answer on whether a PV helps or hinders a Johnson GE defeat, but it seems to me this is the crucial debate for the PV before GE question.  

How does a Johnson deal change this calculation. I think it is reasonable to assume that a final deal will not be done with the EU before the EU summit.[1] The reason is simple. Any deal the EU would be prepared to agree to will leave the DUP and part of the Conservative party unhappy, and will almost certainly mean he will not get that deal through parliament. Johnson also knows that in all likelihood he will have to ask the EU for an extension and that the EU will grant it. It will be better for him to go into a GE arguing that he is on the brink of getting a deal, rather than a deal just having broken down.

It should be now clear that this situation makes a PV before a GE more likely to lead to a Johnson boycott than previously. The PV cannot have his prototype deal on the ballot as it has not been signed off by the EU. Johnson will say, with MSM credible justification, that a PV on any other deal is ridiculous, and that he should be given a chance to get his deal through. Because that logic will seem plausible to most Leavers, a PV before a GE looks increasingly like a desperate attempt to stop Johnson getting his deal. The chances of the PV before a GE increasing Johnson’s prospect in a GE increase significantly.

The fundamental lesson is that a PV has to go with political change. The Tories can boycott a referendum at any time, so a PV will only secure the end of Brexit if that vote is taken by a parliament that will not shortly afterwards start the process up again. That in turn means having a GE in which the Conservatives are defeated by Labour and the Liberal Democrats winning their marginal seats (and keeping their own). It means tactical voting by Remainers in the next General Election. The idea of a LibDem overall majority is a fantasy worthy of Brexiters.

Those who say a Corbyn led government would be worse than No Deal or a very hard Brexit are therefore working against Remain. Those who say Corbyn is not fit to be PM are working against Remain. Those who say Corbyn allowed Brexit to happen are working against Remain. Some of the people saying these things may call themselves Remainers, but tactical voting is the only realistic option for true Remainers.

To those who say to me that they cannot vote for Corbyn because he is a Brexiter, I can only respond in this way. Brexit is effectively impossible under a Labour government, because the Tories and Remainers will vote against it in parliament unless it goes to a PV, and in a PV many Leavers and all Remainers will vote against a soft Brexit. Whatever you think Corbyn’s beliefs are cannot change that. It is why the People’s Vote campaign is promoting tactical voting. Anything other than a tactical vote for Remain in the forthcoming GE is a vote for Brexit.

[1] The idea of attaching a PV to any approval of Johnson's deal when it finally comes to the Commons is very different, and not what I am talking about here. 

Once the Nasty party, now the Brexit party

Brexit could be a gift to Labour that will keep on giving, if the Labour leader is able to grasp it

One of the sentences you are sure to hear nowadays is: “Brexit is not going to go away anytime soon”. It is true because Conservative party members will not let it go away. A recent poll showed a majority of those who will elect our next Prime Minister would prefer achieving Brexit to Scotland saying in the UK, Northern Ireland staying in the UK, or even the survival of their own party. They want Brexit even if it causes severe damage to the economy. The only thing that the poll suggested might make a majority forsake Brexit is the prospect of Jeremy Corbyn becoming Prime Minister.Therein lies the cure for our current Brexit blight and the opportunity for more than one period of Labour government.

In the short term Brexit fanaticism is extremely scary. The wish to see Brexit happen even if it leads to the destruction of the Tory party is utterly extraordinary coming from Conservative party members. Of course Conservative MPs do not want to see that, but their survival in government now seems tied to getting Brexit done, and so most seem prepared to contemplate a No Deal Brexit if that is what it takes. Our only hope to prevent this are a small band of Tory MPs who might put country before party, who could then combine with most opposition MPs to stop this happening.

Even if the attempt to leave with No Deal in October fails or does not happen, the Tory party is not going to give up. This radicalised membership will do its work by selecting Brexiters when MPs retire or leave for other reasons, and they may well deselect some of those who oppose No Deal. At some point those willing to stand up in parliament against a No Deal Brexit on the Tory benches will shrink to become insignificant. At that point Conservative party members will get their prize, if they are still in government.

How did the Conservative party descend to this level of fanaticism about just one issue? Robert Saunders’s New Statesman article about the closing of the Conservative mind is well worth reading. It is particularly useful for those young enough to think that Conservatives were always neoliberals. He writes:

“For most of its history, the Conservative Party has embraced ideas, while disclaiming ideology. Yet today, a party enslaved by ideology is almost barren of thought, just as it faces a historic set of challenges.”

Sauders has some ideas about why this happened but I think it remains a puzzle. One possibility is simply the scale of their intellectual victory under Thatcher, such that their Labour opponents showed they could operate in the UK that Thatcher bequeathed but with a more human face (including more NHS spending). The Conservatives became, to use Theresa May’s words, the nasty party in voters minds. The only way forward was to double down on reactionary xenophobia (Hague’s “foreign land”) or ramp up the neoliberalism (Osborne's austerity).

How did the Tory party membership get so radicalised about Brexit, when all the talk was about radicalism and entryism in the Labour party? The reason is that the Tory press that spent so much ink on talking about an imagined hard left Labour membership was also busy radicalising the Conservatives. Brexit embodies a mixture of nationalism, xenophobia, nostalgia and neoliberal zeal that Conservative party members cannot resist.

In all this scary stuff there is a potential light at the end of the tunnel, a way out of all this mess. And despite all the talk, it isn’t a Remain victory in a People's Vote. Even if we have another referendum, which seems only likely in a last minute panic created by an EU ultimatum, it will not de-radicalise the Tory membership. If, as seems prudent, the referendum is about the withdrawal agreement, then Brexiters will say that the right question was not asked. If it involves No Deal, then any loss by a few percentage points (and the press will ensure at least that) will just become unfinished business.

The best way for Brexit to end is not in the drama of another referendum, but instead with a whimper. The only way that can happen, with a radicalised Tory membership, is by electing a Labour government. As I have argued with little challenge, the Tories would oppose any sort of softer Brexit a Labour government might propose, so together with Remainers they would have a blocking majority in parliament or the country. How far a Corbyn led government would go down this road to nowhere we do not know. But he would never be allowed to put a Labour government at risk by pursuing a lost cause, so Brexit will not happen as long as a Labour government remained in power..

What we know a future Labour government would do is undertake a lot of measures designed to help one section of the Brexit electorate, the so called left behind. Very soon those and other voters would lose interest in Brexit, as politics became all about what the Labour government was actually doing. People would increasingly look back at the years following the 2016 referendum as wasted years, and an example of something never to be repeated.

At first Conservatives would try and keep the flame of Brexit alive. Doing so would only ensure their unelectability, as Labour would only have to remind people of the chaos of the Brexit years. Conservative voters and MPs would gradually realise that being the Brexit party was like being the nasty party, a sure way not to be re-elected. It may take one or two more elections, but as that poll of Conservative party members suggested, the only thing that could make them give up Brexit is a Corbyn government. That is in essence why a Labour government is the best, and I suspect only, way of disposing of the Brexit blight that has infected the Conservative party and therefore the UK.

This is the light at the end of the tunnel, such that Brexit ends with a whimper. However you have perhaps already wondered why, if this is all true, so many Labour voters and Remain supporters chose not to vote Labour in the European elections? Why have the Liberal Democrats suddenly managed to break free of the shackles of being in the 2010 Coalition government to be among the four contender parties in opinion polls?

I think there are two answers, one that acted as a trigger and one underlying force. The trigger was the Brexit talks between Corbyn and May. Although political commentators rightly gave these talks little hope of success, their length would certainly have provoked a fear among Remainers who had voted Labour in 2017 that Brexit could happen in this way. In addition the European poll seemed like an appropriate time to protest.

The underlying factor is that many voters are now identifying themselves in political terms along a Remain/Leave divide instead of a political divide. Remainers were getting fed up with the absence of a strong political voice making the case for Remain, and instead hearing endless discussion of impossible Brexit plans from the ERG. All they hear from Labour (because most voters do not read political speeches) is the latest version of Labour’s position on a second referendum. Labour seems to be muffling its own voice on the issue of the moment. The Liberal Democrat campaign slogan of ‘Bollocks to Brexit’ was just want Remainers had been waiting to hear.

Which brings us to the current shadow cabinet meetings. Corbyn has moved another iota, agreeing that an option on the ballot would be “a real choice” for Remainers, but not moving nearly as far as many want. There is a certain symmetry in the two main parties position on Brexit, but also major differences. The symmetry is that, during May’s period, both parties wanted some form of compromise compared to what most of their party members wanted. Both parties eventually encouraged an insurgent party, the Brexit party for the Tories and the Liberal Democrats for Labour, that was able to take a large number of their votes by offering policies that forsaked compromise. But there the similarity ends.

The Conservative party will decide, in one way or another, to come to some kind of accommodation with the insurgent party. That will happen by changing their Brexit policy to mirror the policy of the insurgent, or to cooperate with the insurgent party in any general election, or both. The Conservatives, as they always do, will adapt to the threat they face in order to stay in power. .

The Labour leadership, in contrast, is in denial. All the evidence points to their failure to campaign for Remain as being a critical threat to an election victory, an election that could come very soon. Even before the European elections there were as many Remain and Leave maginals, because many working class Labour voters had changed their mind since 2016. In addition, it turns out Labour leavers do not feel that strongly about Labour taking a Remain position, but Labour Remainers care about it a lot. I have not come across a single reputable pollster that suggests Labour are increasing their General Election chances by keeping its pro-Brexit position, and plenty arguing that to win they have to back Remain.

The argument that Labour needs to support Brexit to win the election is no longer credible. Instead the leadership’s support for Brexit puts at serious risk a Labour government that could rule for more than a decade. When you add in the impossibility of a Labour government enacting Brexit, and I just do not see why Lexiters remain in denial.

Incremental moves until conference also makes no sense as a strategy. The longer Remain voters get used to thinking they are going to vote Green or Liberal Democrat, and as long as the Labour leadership resists what appears to be overwhelming force, there is a strong risk that many will carry that habit into a General Election, if only because Labour’s eventual change will lack credibility.

If the shadow cabinet are interested in maximising Labour’s chance of being in power, it has to change Labour’s official position to one of supporting Remain now. No one is asking Corbyn himself to campaign for Remain, and it would probably be better if he didn’t, because there are plenty on his front bench who can do so more credibly. But their campaigning has to reflect Labour’s official position, which is to become the only party that can make Brexit go away.

Labour Remainers can no longer trust Corbyn not to do a deal with May

I have argued in an earlier post that it is highly unlikely that Labour could get Brexit through parliament after winning an election, because the Tories will unite to oppose it, and they together with Labour Remain MPs would defeat it. The NEC recently agreed they want a People’s Vote on any Brexit that the Labour leadership disagree with. So the only way that Labour’s current policy might allow Brexit without a People’s Vote is if the Labour leadership come to some accord with Theresa May and her government.

The general expectation has been that a deal between May and the Labour leadership on Brexit is pretty unlikely. With many senior ministers focused on who will succeed May as Prime Minister, any deal with Labour is likely to see May’s cabinet collapse. The same should apply to the Labour side. The Tories are suffering because they are totally split and take the blame for not delivering Brexit. Why would Labour want to take joint ownership of this toxic project? Even if May and Corbyn could agree, the chances of any deal getting through parliament without a People’s Vote also attached are slim.

But May has nothing to lose, and unfortunately the reality as a result of Tuesday’s NEC decision is that Labour Remainers cannot trust Corbyn over Brexit. The argument before the 2017 election that Corbyn’s stance was just triangulation, or an attempt to shift the debate on to ground where Labour have an advantage, no longer holds because opinion has shifted to Remain, and a recent UCL study shows the switchers are predominantly Labour voters. The same study shows that for Labour, at least a fifth of their voters in every region say they are going to vote for a different party – and in every region defecting voters are overwhelming plumping for parties holding a definite Remain position. As Peter Kellner points out “Labour voters in Leave areas now back Remain by a margin of more than three to one.”

The excuses for Labour’s equivocation have therefore melted away. It looks more and more that Corbyn wants to avoid an unqualified commitment to a People’s Vote because he wants the path clear to do a Brexit deal with the government. That is obviously not in the interests of Remain voters. It is also a huge hit to his brand: the leader of principle who will give power back to Labour members. Remain voters' obvious response is to vote for one of the clear Remain parties. This is what seems to have happened in the local election today, and it will happen again in the elections for the European parliament.

There are two objections to Labour voters doing this. The first, and more powerful, is that seats in the European Parliament matter, and the more left leaning MEPs there are the better. If Corbyn is unsuccessful in doing a deal with the government, or if that agreement collapses, then this is a real cost. The second argument is that not voting Labour makes it more likely Farage will win the election. But as I have argued elsewhere, its votes not seats that matter in that election. Labour voters are going to keep forsaking their party as long as their commitment to People’s Vote is less than 100%.

Why the European Elections will be painful to watch for some Remainers

In theory the forthcoming European Elections on 23rd May should be an opportunity for Remainers to translate the clear majority for staying in the EU that we see in the polls into actual votes. Remain has been ahead of Leave since the summer of 2017, and recent majorities have been above 5%. Indeed some in the smaller anti-Brexit parties have been suggesting exactly this: the EU elections should be about Remaining rather than Leaving. Unfortunately things are not that simple, as the following YouGov poll illustrates.

The smaller columns for the parties represent the data with ‘Would not vote’ and ‘Don’t know’ included.

The first point is that the anti-Brexit parties are polling at around half the level of the pro-Brexit, anti-People’s Vote parties. The key problem, as it has always been for the Remain cause, is that the Labour vote is mostly made up of Remainers. In this poll, 77% of Labour voters voted Remain in the 2016 referendum, and some of the other 23% may have changed their minds since then. Labour is an overwhelmingly Remain party in terms of who votes for it, but its leadership is in favour of its own form of Brexit and appears ambivalent towards a People’s Vote.

Some Remainers would love voters to desert Labour and vote for one of the three unambiguously anti-Brexit parties. But this is very unlikely to happen. Many voters, even though they might support Remain, want a Labour government above all else, and they will vote for Labour despite this being about elections to the European Parliament. This is of course exactly what happened in the 2017 general election. Voting left is hardly an irrational choice for these Remainers, because if we do not leave the EU the European Parliament does play a minor role in EU affairs and it is important to have left wing voices there.

The second point is that the elections for the European Parliament is actually about voting for MEPs, so seats matter as well as the popular vote. The D'Hondt voting system used in British elections for the European parliament combined with voting for MEPs on a regional basis does penalise smaller parties. The Liberal Democrats only received 1 seat out of 73 in 2014, even though they got nearly 7% of the overall vote. As a result, if the Remain vote splits badly it is conceivable that the total seat count for the Remain parties combined may only be a few seats, which will not look good compared to the double figures that Farage will get.

A very good question is why the anti-Brexit parties have not cooperated. It would be difficult to choose just one of the three parties to stand in each district, but it would not be impossible. Without this cooperation, tactical voting is unlikely to prevent the anti-Brexit vote being split three ways in each England region. It would seem these parties think it is more important to fight among themselves than unite in sending a clear message on Brexit. That will be sad if this failure leads to MEPs only being in the job for a few months. Remain can get a million on the streets and 6 million signatures, but it seems getting small parties to cooperate is a more difficult task.

Another possibility would have been for the People's Vote campaign to do as Nigel Farage has done, and put up candidates themselves on a pro-EU ticket. Unlike Farage, the People's Vote campaign would face problems in doing so. Electing individuals on a simple pro-EU ticket only makes sense if these MEPs only have a very short tenure. If the campaign is successful, you want proper MEPs representing different political perspectives. That is probably one of many reasons why the People's Vote campaign will not field candidates of its own, and is perhaps another reason why the smaller parties do not cooperate.

Given Labour's position and the lack of cooperation among the anti-Brexit parties, Remainers should not turn these European elections into a vote about being anti-Brexit, because they will lose badly. The combined vote for UKIP, the new Brexit party and the Conservatives is almost certain to exceed the combined vote for the LibDems, CHUK and the Greens. A smarter tactic would be, through the People’s Vote campaign, to make these elections into a vote about a People’s vote. The key difference of course is that Labour can potentially be counted as being in favour of a People’s Vote, and so making the European elections as a kind of referendum on a People’s Vote might succeed. Using the poll numbers above, the pro-People’s Vote parties have an overall majority.

In reality Labour’s position on a People’s Vote is nuanced, or perhaps just confused. It is in favour of a People’s Vote for a deal it does not like, but is rather ambivalent if the deal is its own. The leadership is divided on the issue. Apparently Keir Starmer was described by Tories in the joint government/Labour negotiations as the ‘ideologue’ for wanting a People’s Vote, while his colleagues were described as more reasonable! The European elections could force Labour’s hand on the issue. This is obviously what the People’s Vote campaign will hope for, but how much the Electoral Commission will allow it to campaign over the election is unclear.

If Labour did unambiguously commit to a People’s Vote in all circumstances it could take votes from the smaller parties, and this may well dominate any votes it my lose from Labour leavers. Labour has the opportunity for an overwhelming victory in these elections, as Brexit will take many votes away from the Conservatives to pro-No Deal parties. However that inducement may not be enough, in part because Labour are constantly thinking about the possibility of a General Election where they do not want to be painted as the anti-Brexit party. Remainers should also have the sense to see that a Labour victory in a general election would be a better option from a Remain point of view than a People’s Vote, for reasons I set out here.

Without a general election, the Brexit position has become a stalemate. Theresa May is set against holding a People’s Vote, and so are Brexiters. Behind all their guff about such a vote being an insult against democracy (“War is peace. Freedom is slavery. Ignorance is strength”), the real reason Brexiters hate the idea of a second referendum is that they think they will lose. Nor has parliament been able to force the government to hold a referendum, with the latest vote in parliament being 280 voting in favor of a People’s Vote and 292 against.

However no other option looks like getting over the line anytime soon either. Brexit has become a war of attrition. Brexiters are in no mood to accept May’s deal, and instead some have pinned their hopes on replacing her. Even if they succeed, it is unclear how this changes the parliamentary arithmetic. The Tories also fear a general election for the same reasons Brexiters fear a People’s Vote. Talks between Labour and the government are unlikely to get anywhere because a compromise that didn’t include a People’s Vote would be devastating for Labour, and any compromise by the government would pour oil on the fire of Tory divisions. Finally the new October deadline set by the EU is unlikely to force anyone to change their mind, because there is a belief in the UK that the EU will always allow another extension rather than risk an exit with no deal.

In these circumstances, a People’s Vote (PV) is going to be seen more and more as the only way out. In parliament it is already the option with most votes. It is just possible that the European Elections could change some minds if it was seen as an endorsement for holding a PV. But for this to happen the PV campaign needs to persuade the smaller parties to stop talking about this election as being about Brexit and instead start talking about a People’s Vote.

As far as the media is concerned, the European elections will be about the showing of the pro-No Deal parties. Indeed it could all be about Nigel Farage. His new Brexit party is well organised, well funded (from sources unknown), and is likely to get extensive publicity from the BBC at least. (To see the BBC choosing his “put the fear of god into MPs at Westminster” line as their headline quote illustrates all too well the themes of last week’s article on how the media encourages far right extremism.) The poll above, taken before his party was formally launched, indicates that his Brexit party could easily end up beating the Conservatives and coming second, as UKIP voters switch to his party. This will become the main new story.

That will be painful to watch for Remainers, but ironically it could indirectly help the People’s Vote cause. Moderate Conservative MPs will see the poor showing of their party in the European elections and begin to understand more clearly the bind they are in. For as long as Brexit is an issue, they will be in danger of hemorrhaging votes to pro-No Deal parties, but if they accept No Deal the Conservatives will not be in government for decades. A People’s Vote on May’s deal may be the only chance they have of changing that situation any time soon.

Why are we in this political mess?

I am sick and tired of being told that the 2016 referendum gave the government a mandate to leave the EU. It did not. It did not because it did not specify a method of leaving. The Leave campaign was all over the place on how we would leave, and deliberately so. It maximised their vote. It was Cameron’s failure not to see that. He could so easily have made it a condition for holding a referendum that the Leave side put together a coherent, independently assessed and costed plan for leaving, but he didn’t. That, together with austerity, will be his legacy.

I heard a good comparison the other day. Some colleagues after work decide it would be great to go out together for a meal. They all agree enthusiastically. That is decided they say. But then someone asks where they should go to eat. One says definitely not Indian. Another says they are fed up with Italian food. And so on: whatever it is someone says they definitely don’t want to go there. But they all agree they must all eat together. They end up calling the whole thing off.

The lack of a specific plan agreed in the referendum would not have mattered if one of two conditions were true. The first is that everyone who voted to Leave preferred all forms of leaving to staying in the EU. That clearly is not true. The second was that the majority to leave was so large, and stayed large, such that whatever form was eventually chosen commanded a majority. In reality the majority to leave was small, and polls now show a much larger majority wanting to stay. As a result, the first referendum in itself demands a People's Vote.

The logic of this is clear. Once you add in the fact that more Leavers than Remainers are changing their mind and the case for a People’s Vote is overwhelming. More people don’t laugh when Brexiters say a People’s Vote would be undemocratic because the Brexiters and the Brexit press are shouting so loud people find it hard to think. What is happening in parliament reflects these divisions within the country. It is impossible to get a majority for any form of Brexit in parliament, just as there is no majority for any form of Brexit in the country.

Parliament does differ from sentiment in the country for one reason: MPs are clearly intimidated either by the referendum vote itself, the Brexit press or the Brexit majority in their constituency. This gave Theresa May an opportunity. If she had understood what the closeness of the result meant, she would see that at best there was only a mandate for the softest of Brexits. I think she could have got that through parliament, especially if she had held cross-party talks before invoking Article 50 to agree a plan. The Brexiters would have huffed and puffed, but May would have got a deal passed with Labour’s help.

We all know what she actually did. One consequence of that was both sides hardened their positions. A key mistake in a long litany of errors was to believe that ‘No Deal is better than a bad deal’ was a good bargaining ploy. The EU saw it was nonsense, but it gave Brexiters hope that they could actually get No Deal. That in turn led to two heavy defeats in parliament. Thanks to the Brexit press Project Fear applies to anything negative said about leaving the EU, so many voters think having a ‘clean break’ sounds like a good idea.

This hardening of positions means that the current negotiations are extremely dangerous for May and Labour. But May has nothing to lose except her legacy. Labour have everything to lose. Too many Lexiters within Labour have the attitude that Remainers have nowhere else to go. That was never true, as they could always not vote or not campaign. Alternatives have no increased with the creation of UKC and a Lib Dem party that is no longer a party of austerity. To throw away the next election for the sake of not having a People’s Vote does merit the use of the word betrayal. Betrayal not just of Remainers, but also of all those people that want or depend on Labour winning the next election.

The new party: lessons the Labour leadership and its supporters failed to learn

I know it is a cliché but too many supporters of the Labour leadership, and perhaps the leadership itself, seem to have forgotten it. Labour is a broad church. It has to be a broad church if it is to be successful. It has to be a broad church when led from the right because otherwise the leadership drifts too easily into the centre or worse. Labour needs its left to stay honest to its principles. If Labour is led from the left it needs to be a broad church to win elections and avoid policies based on ideology rather than evidence. 

In other times Labour led from the left would need to be a broad church because otherwise the Conservatives would go for the centre ground and deprive Labour of the votes to win. Labour today does not face that problem, because the Conservative party is more right wing than at any time since WWII. Labour also had the great advantage that the only centre party around, the Liberal Democrats, are still struggling to shake off the damage their period in power did to their appeal. So the position Labour had was extremely favourable to a left led Labour party, and it has to be favourable because the media will always be hostile to it.

It is also essential that Labour win the next election on a radical economic and societal programme of the type the leadership have put forward. If we continue with a deficit obsessed politics we will see standards of living in the UK continue to fall behind other countries, and we will not see the radical industrial policy that is required to revitalise some of the poorest regions in Western Europe. Nor will we see a genuine Green New Deal that will help us mitigate climate change if Labour do not form the next government. And without an outright Labour victory we will continue with a right wing press and a cowed BBC that has already given us Brexit and will continue to have a pernicious influence on the UK.

The one threat to the advantageous position Labour had is the formation of a new centre party made up in most part of defections by Labour MPs. But even that would not be fatal to a Labour election victory if this new party appealed more to disgruntled Tory than Labour voters. So the task the Labour leadership had was to ensure that the appeal of any new party to Labour voters was minimised.

With its Brexit policy the leadership, and more particularly the cabal around Corbyn himself, failed to do this job. What defines the new Independent group is their position on Brexit. I am fed up with supporters of the Labour leadership telling me that Remainers cannot be a strong political force because the LibDem vote is so low, when the same people take every opportunity to remind the LibDems of their record in government. The LibDems are still toxic for that reason, but a new anti-Brexit party is not, which is a big problem for Labour when the majority of the population now favour Remain to Leave.

As I have written before, Labour’s stance on Brexit is a gift to the new party. It gives them a large pool of Remainers, many of whom were Labour voters in 2017, to fish in for support. This is but one of the many reasons why looking at the SDP for lessons is misleading. As Brexit is going to be a defining issue over the next four years, the new party could become a home for those who see Remaining or rejoining as their most important political priority. That is why the new party is a serious threat to Labour.

For Corbyn to pledge that members will make party policy, and then ignore the view of the overwhelming majority on the most critical issue of the day, just reeks of hypocrisy. From the day the referendum was lost the signals he has sent have been clear. Owen Smith was sacked for suggesting a People’s Vote, yet nothing happens to those who vote against extending the Article 50 deadline. The final paragraph of a letter to the PM drafted by Starmer mentioning a People’s Vote gets left off ‘by mistake’. If Corbyn did not want to send out the message that he does not want a People’s Vote then he and his team are extraordinarily inept, and I do not think they are. *** The triangulation strategy, which was smart before the election of 2017, has now become an existential threat to Labour winning the next election. 

The Labour leadership have also failed to kill the issue of antisemitism within Labour. Much of this is because the media is hopelessly biased on the issue, and remain almost silent on the at least as important problem of Islamophobia in the Tory party. However given that this was always going to be the case, the leadership have not done enough to shake the charge of institutional antisemitism. Not adopting the IHRA definition in full was a huge tactical mistake. The party has done a lot to improve how it works, but disciplinary procedures seem to remain mired in controversy and delay, and there is more that the leadership could do. 

Which brings me inevitably to the attitude of too many supporters of the leadership. Because, for obvious reasons, Labour are so vulnerable on the issue of antisemitism, you do not attack those making accusations. It makes it appear you have something to hide. Unfortunately 30% of the membership cannot see that antisemitism is a real issue for the party and think it is entirely a media scam, which means they fail to tread carefully. At its worst this can amount to institutional antisemitism.

Being a broad church means you have different opinions within that church, and those differences are respected. Yet too many leadership supporters regard criticism as treachery, and find it too easy to tell critics they should not be in the party. Indeed some are right now encouraging good Labour MPs to leave. They seem obsessed by criticising the previous Labour government, using Blairite as the ultimate form of abuse, and trying to purify the party in their own image.

Just as the leadership were always going to be vulnerable to charges of antisemitism, they were also going to be charged with being a hangover from the early 80s Labour left. Yet rather than do all they can to distance themselves with this political failure, they seem to regard it with a kind of romantic attitude. How else can you explain letting Derek Hatton back into the party. It sometimes seems as if the party’s distaste for spin means they do not think about how the party appears to those outside it’s band of loyalists at all.

Who knows what will happen in UK politics now. The new group could gradually fade away as voters get tired of Brexit or if there is a quick election, or it could completely change the shape of UK politics. The most likely single outcome, once you factor in media bias as you have to, is that they stop Labour forming the next government. If you think this post sounds unusually angry that is why. 

It is crucial that winners as well as losers learn the lessons of past conflicts, and the Labour leadership and its supporters did not learn the lessons of the vote of no confidence. Corbyn is not a natural manager of a large team, and that makes it all the more important that Labour policies keep the majority of MPs and members on board. The current Brexit strategy fails to do that. The smartest move that Corbyn could make right now would be to give Keir Starmer back the driving seat on Brexit, but I fear Corbyn is just too keen on Brexit happening to do that. As a result, Labour have given the new party the opportunity to eat into Labour's support. It is almost certainly Corbyn's biggest mistake since he became Labour leader.

*** Postscript (23/02/19) I have had a lot of responses saying that he is just following conference policy. It is the perception of voters that matter here, but on that particular issue see this letter from the party members who helped draft that policy.   

Parliament’s Brexit game

Someone may have done this elsewhere and probably with more accuracy, but I hadn’t seen it so I thought I’d work through the numbers myself. Suppose parliament breaks down into five main factions, with a very approximate indication of their size.

Brexiters - No Deal         100

May loyalists - No FoM   200

People’s Vote                 150

Corbyn loyalists               30

Soft Brexit                      150

You can see how Tuesday’s vote worked out. May’s block alone voted for her deal, while all the other blocks voted against. Note also that the soft Brexit block have no quarrel with the Withdrawal Agreement as such. It is the political declaration about what the UK tries to do after Brexit that they want to change.

The unusual feature of this game is of course that if no other block can get a majority by the end of March, the Brexiters win because the UK leaves without a deal. So the race is now on to get a majority. As we have already seen, May’s deal which effectively ends Freedom of Movement cannot get a majority, because the Brexiters who she courted for two years have turned against her (as they always would).

If May really did try and get a deal for a softer Brexit she would probably get enough, although many Labour soft Brexiters might be reluctant to sign up to anything that came from her. In addition the DUP could end their support for her government, and she might lose a few from her block. A more subtle move is to release her block to vote for something organised by Labour and Tory MPs. That is probably the best chance for a winning coalition, but May has until now proved too stubborn and too partisan to try it. Alternatively she could agree to a second referendum between her deal and Remain, which the People’s Vote block would vote for even if the proposal came from her, but she might still lose the DUP’s support. Sam Lowe and John Springfield have a discussion of May’s options here.

Another possibility, raised in my last post, is that the soft Brexit group and the People’s Vote group unite by offering a Remain vs Soft Brexit referendum. This would have a chance, particularly if Corbyn supported it. It seems clear that the second referendum block cannot win on their own (despite my best efforts to suggest that is the right way forward) while the soft Brexit possibility is still around.

That will be one reason why Corbyn will not declare quickly for a second referendum. So if May remains stubborn and if soft Brexit and People’s Vote fail to combine, we get into a war of attrition. To see which blocks are most durable, we need to think about what happens on the week starting 25th March. [1]

At that point, if no majority is formed over that week, we get No Deal. That tells you that the Brexiter block is the most durable (something May seems unable to understand). In that week May will undoubtedly try to push her deal through as the ‘not a No Deal’ option, but equally MPs will counter with a revoke A50 amendment. The latter possibility tells you that the People’s Vote group and May are more durable blocks than those advocating soft Brexit, because they have something to hope for in a last minute panic. That in turn means that the Soft Brexit block need to get a winning coalition sooner rather than later.

All this assumes that No Deal remains on the table. The only way it could get taken off is for parliament, or May and parliament [2], to commit to revoking Article 50 at a date close to leaving. If that happens we get a new game, because most of the Brexiter block would revert to May's corner, but equally other blocks would become more stubborn. But if this analysis is correct, it suggests she has a better chance of getting a majority for a slightly softer version of her deal if she took No Deal off the table. 

This is almost certainly wrong and incomplete, and I’m more than happy for people to tell me why. 

[1] It would probably be before that date, because whoever wins and stops no deal will need an extension of A50, and the EU may need some time to agree to that. But the EU will probably not grant an extension unless the UK has made up its mind, if only because they believe the threat of No Deal is needed to get the UK to make up its mind.

[2] Thanks to @SpinningHugo for reminding me that May cannot revoke A50 alone. 

How Leavers can believe that a People’s Vote is anti-democratic

How many times have you heard Brexiters, or Theresa May, argue that to hold a second referendum is impossible because people have already had a vote. The people have decided and the government is carrying out their instructions. To hold another referendum would break that contract between the people and government, and would as a result destroy the people’s faith in democracy. And so on. Some even say flatly that it is anti-democratic.

When people put forward similar arguments I have found that a good question to ask is this. Suppose that the polls showed 99% of people thought Brexit was now a mistake: would you still insist that we should not hold another referendum, and go ahead with Brexit? Replying of course not allows you to repeat the question with a smaller percentage. The moment they say that isn’t a big enough percentage, you can simply ask why 52% was good enough to hold a referendum but some higher percentage is not enough to justify asking the question again.

For this reason most have argued with me that even if 99% of people didn’t want Brexit today, it should still go ahead because of the 2016 vote. This is the logic behind the view put forward by most of those who would deny another vote, because their argument is never qualified by referring to current public opinion. A vote has been taken, a decision has been made, and now parliament has to enact that decision to retain faith in democracy. Thus a second referendum, in their eyes, can be anti-democratic.

If you, like me, think it cannot be right to not have a second referendum if 99% of people, or even 56%, no longer want Brexit, you are of course right. The problem with their argument is that the people in 2016 cannot bind the people in 2019. In most cases they will be the same people, but those same people have a right - a democratic right - to change their mind. This right is absolute, in the sense that people are not required to justify why they have changed their mind.

At this point the argument usually turns to comparisons to general elections. Once a government is elected, it cannot be thrown out just because the public starts disliking the government (as they used to do, regularly, 2 or so years after being elected). Just as in a general election people vote for a government to last 5 years, so a referendum result on a particular issue must last unchallenged for a certain number of years.

Except, of course, general elections do not necessarily last five years. MPs can decide on a general election if a certain majority want it (as perhaps we may be about to find out). In exactly the same way, MPs can legitimately decide to hold a second referendum. There seems to be a view that because the 2016 referendum was around 40 years after the previous one, that is some kind of rule, but one observation does not make a rule.

Equally it does not matter in the slightest that David Cameron in his wisdom said the 2016 referendum was for a generation. Just as a vote in 2016 cannot bind people 3 years later, the words of David Cameron certainly should not bind MPs 3 years later. We know that an awful lot of what was said in that referendum was a complete lie.

Cameron has a great deal to answer for in this matter. Not just holding the referendum itself, or saying things like the result would hold for a generation, but also allowing a form of words which left the Leave side completely free to propose whatever type of post-Brexit arrangements took their fancy. It was an open invitation to the Leave side to make up tall stories about the arrangements they could negotiate with the EU, and the Leave side accepted the invitation gleefully. In many respects the need for a second referendum on the negotiated deal was inevitable given the open-ended Leave option in the first.

To argue, as some do, that nothing much has changed in more than two years is laughable. We now know many things that were not clear in 2016. Turkey is not about to join the EU. The OBR have said that Brexit will mean less money for public services, and the government has accepted that projection. (So less, not more, money for the NHS etc.) Doing a deal with the EU is not the easiest in history: it took 2 years just to get a withdrawal agreement. That agreement requires the UK to effectively stay in the Customs Union because of the Good Friday agreement: hardly discussed in the referendum, and then dismissed as Project Fear. And so on and on.

So it makes sense to hold a referendum on the withdrawal agreement for those reasons alone. Those arguments are helped by the polls, which for about a year have shown a majority to Remain and a widening gap of late. (Again I have been told the polls conflict and are neck and neck, and in characteristic Leave style this is just false. As this mapping over time of 100 polls show, Remain has been consistently ahead of Leave for over a year, and the gap has been steadily widening. This is despite neither of the two main parties championing Remain.) I have been told that polls are unreliable, which is why we have actual votes and why MPs feel they need a referendum on the withdrawal agreement rather than revoking it themselves. 

Just as MPs can choose to hold a general election at any time they want, they can hold a referendum at any time they want. People have a democratic right to change their mind. This right is absolute, but it becomes obvious why there should be this right when you have a referendum based on fantasies that look nothing like the reality that has emerged. There is a different argument about a second referendum: not that it is anti-democratic but that it would be dangerous or unfortunate. That will have to wait until another post.

You cannot blame people for arguing that the 2016 referendum result must be enacted and cannot be rescinded, because they are being told this by newspapers and politicians all the time. Which is a very irresponsible thing for newspapers and politicians to do, because it embeds within a minority that were once a majority a view that parliamentary democracy has somehow cheated them of something that was rightfully theirs. If we do get another referendum, those same politicians and newspapers are sure to play to this idea of being cheated that they have themselves fostered. This is why it is important for everyone else to keep saying that a basic part of democracy is allowing people to change their minds.