Whip up unity on Brexit deal
Once again Labour is portrayed as a bitterly divided party on Europe. But it only reflects how our country was cut down the middle over the referendum.
The Tories have been clever in hiding their disunity. As they’re mostly Eurosceptic, this wasn’t hard to do. Bar a handful of Labour MPs who backed Leave at the referendum, our party campaigned for Remain.
We believe being part of the EU protects jobs, workers’ rights and earns us money from being able to access the world’s largest trading area.
Before the Article 50 vote – which only decided if the bill progressed in the House of Commons – I went to a meeting of Labour MPs and peers.
One MP born in the 1970s said they’d never seen such bitterness, resignations and threats to break a three-line whip in Labour opposition.
It was far worse in the 1970s when I was an MP, when Labour had to decide if it would support Prime Minister Ted Heath in taking Britain into the European Common Market, which later became the EU.
There are a number of similarities to today’s experience.
Labour in the 1970 General Election supported entry but didn’t support Heath’s terms. The new Heath government provided a vote on the principle of joining the Common Market.
Labour split on the issue with 69 MPs, led by Roy Jenkins, breaking the whip and voting with the Conservatives to back going in, with a further 13 abstaining.
Heath had a majority of 112, but without this rebellion he would have been defeated.
That led to Labour resignations, calls for discipline over breaking the whip and a bitterness much worse than last week’s vote, where only one in five of our MPs voted against.
Labour, who returned to power in 1974, wanted to renegotiate some terms of our membership of the Common Market to make it work better for Britain.
Harold Wilson managed to get some concessions and we put it to a referendum in 1975. I wanted us to come out and thought we would win, but two thirds of voters chose to stay.
The Wilson government, in wishing to unite the party, developed the Houghton Principle so ministers who broke the whip could rejoin Cabinet and the front bench provided they agreed to back Labour’s policy. I’m not a fan of referendums. The public elect MPs to make decisions on their behalf. It’s called Parliamentary Sovereignty. A referendum is populist sovereignty.
MPs shouldn’t keep looking at their local EU referendum results to base their decision on voting against Article 50.
Look at the national decision. Nationally we voted out and Labour must respect it. Jeremy Corbyn was absolutely right to impose a three-line
It was with great sadness I heard of the death of my friend Tam Dalyell. The many obituaries properly outline his contribution to British politics as a great Parliamentarian. He was a brilliant man with great integrity but also a bit quirky. On one plane trip to Brussels, where we’d been given packed lunches, Tam asked us all to give him our boiled eggs. He then proceeded to peel and eat each egg during a committee meeting. whip to back Article 50. Doing anything else would have been a snub to democracy.
What Labour is doing – and must continue to do – is look to shape what Britain looks like after Brexit. So its amendments to protect workers’ rights and jobs by maintaining access to the single market are important.
We’re not going to stop leaving the EU, but Corbyn can fight for a Labour Brexit that puts people, living standards and business first.
Most Labour MPs who rebelled against Wilson over Europe eventually left to set up the SDP, leading to 18 years of destructive Tory rule.
Now we see May walk hand in hand with the most right-wing US President we’ve ever seen.
The only way we can hold her to account is to fight for a Brexit that protects the people and offer a Labour vision of how to make a success out of leaving the EU.
With child poverty on the rise, NHS and care for the elderly in crisis and rising inequality, Britain needs Labour to be on the attack.
The MPs who resigned must remember that united we stand, divided we fall.
We cannot allow Maggie May to take us back to the 80s.