Keir Starmer should not be frightened. This week he admitted in Montreal that Britain’s Brexit agreement was “not a good deal” and that he wanted a “closer” trading relationship with the EU. What does he mean? He mentioned security and research, ties that Rishi Sunak has already initiated. Yet he shudders with fear at any accusation that he might favour returning to Europe’s customs union or single market, let alone to the EU itself. He quails at the thought of what a Brexit voter in a “red wall” seat might say. Each week his apologists explain this as paranoia over losing his 20-point poll lead. They promise he is a radical at heart. That is what they all say.
The Labour party bears its share of the blame for the failure of Theresa May’s search for a soft Brexit. There were a number of attempts to piece together a Commons coalition behind staying in the customs union or single market. Yet Labour MPs, who overwhelmingly favoured softer versions of Brexit, retreated into a militant Commons polarisation. Why should they help May just because it was in the nation’s interest? They duly allowed the Tory right to enforce its “hard” definition of Brexit as a total divorce from Europe’s economic zone. In their study of this chaotic period, The Parliamentary Battle Over Brexit, political scientists Meg Russell and Lisa James graphically describe the ignorance of most Labour MPs in what they thought they were voting for. They just obeyed their whips. It was a dreadful chapter in parliament’s history.
