It’s no secret that the public are confused and unclear about the Labour Party’s policy on Brexit. Consecutive polls show that the majority of the public just don’t grasp it. Given the importance of Brexit, this is not a healthy position to be in.
Labour is in a mess over Brexit because too many members of the Shadow Cabinet continue to express their own personal opinions on the matter. Day after day they constantly contradict the collective, agreed position of the party.
The Shadow Cabinet operates, and has always operated, on the principle of collective responsibility. Discussions around policy and strategy should take place in the confines of Shadow Cabinet meetings.
But this week, the deputy leader of the Labour Party, Tom Watson, broke that collective responsibility by publicly declaring himself against the agreed strategy and policy of the Labour Party. Not only that but he took his case directly to the media, encouraging Labour to fully support a second referendum as its primary policy, and to campaign for Remain.
In his speech, which was passionate and a determined challenge to the policy of the leadership, Tom Watson said Labour had always been a European party deeply rooted in the values of the EU.
This is factually incorrect. Labour has been deeply Eurosceptic for most of its history and we vigorously opposed UK membership of the Common Market. In fact, Hugh Gaitskell, a previous party leader, dedicated his entire conference speech in 1962 to spelling out the reasons why the Labour and Trade Union movement should oppose Common Market entry. And, indeed, in 1983 the Labour Party fought a general election on the basis that it would unilaterally withdraw from the EEC under the leadership of Michael Foot.
It’s no secret that 70% of Labour constituencies voted to leave the European Union. But few in the party seem able to grasp the huge significance of this today. Tom Watson, whose own constituency of West Bromwich voted Leave, did acknowledge that adopting a Remain policy would cost Labour votes. But I really don’t think he has fully projected the figures forward to the next general election and beyond.
Around five million voters who supported Labour in the 2017 general election previously voted to leave. If the Labour Party adopts a Remain policy it is almost certain that our Leave vote will abandon Labour in favour of the Brexit Party, or even a Brexit-led Tory Party. I agree with John Mann, who thinks it will cause Labour to lose the next election by a significant margin.
The chair of the Labour Party, Ian Lavery, whose constituency of Wansbeck also voted to leave rightly tweeted yesterday that ignoring the 17.4million Leave voters would not be wise and would certainly be undemocratic. In fact, three years on, many people who voted to remain in 2016 share the complete outrage of Leavers. But here we are, with Labour on the verge of trying to overturn the referendum result in the biggest offence to democracy ever.
The 2017 Labour manifesto, on which every Labour MP was elected, promised to respect the outcome of the referendum and implement its decision. Why is Labour even discussing such an abject and profound betrayal? How can Labour believe that this is an acceptable thing to do?
All those people who voted Labour in 2017 did so in the full knowledge that Labour was supporting Brexit. The Peterborough by-election result shows that in marginal Labour constituencies that we must win at a general election, support for a second referendum and Remain is not popular. And the majority of Labour’s most marginal seats and target seats voted to leave.
Therefore the question for Tom Watson and others is: do you want a Labour government? Do you want to win the next general election? If you endorse Remain, Labour will shed voters at an alarming rate, perhaps enough to place us in opposition, if we’re lucky, for another decade. If we’re unlucky we might not even be as successful as that.
Our country is deeply divided, and that division has been created largely by the long delay to Brexit. A second referendum will simply entrench those divisions even further and will strongly intensify wounds in our communities, families and workplaces on this most difficult of issues. In my view Leave would win by a substantial margin, and then what do Labour do?
Labour should be about bringing the country together and that should be our focus. Insurgent parties are on the march. A second referendum has the potential to unleash the kind of forces in this country that we have never seen before.
The threat to Labour is serious, urgent and fundamental. Our heartlands are solidly for Leave. If Labour adopts the Watson strategy it will be a massive recruitment tool for the Right, and could be the catalyst by which the people serve notice on 100 years of Labour history. It is entirely conceivable that Labour would never form a government again.
Good Labour people cannot allow the Labour Party, the greatest force for social progress in this country’s history, to be sacrificed on the altar of Brussels, and the ego of certain MPs.
Brendan Chilton is campaign director of Labour Leave