Six Labour MPS quit in single market revolt

Labour frontbenchers rebel against leadership in vote to seek ‘full access’ to the single market

Six Labour shadow ministers have resigned in protest at Jeremy Corbyn’s single market policy. Laura Smith, a junior shadow cabinet office minister, and parliamentary private secretaries Ged Killen, Ellie Reeves, Tonia Antoniazzi, Anna Mcmorrin and Rosie Duffield rebelled against orders to abstain on a Lords amendment calling for “full access” to the EU market. Tory rebels, meanwhile, warned Theresa May not to break a promise to give them a “real say” in the outcome of Brexit.

By Gordon Rayner Political Editor JEREMY CORBYN suffered his biggest Brexit rebellion yet last night as six members of his front bench resigned and 89 of his MPS defied his orders in a vote over the EU single market.

Labour’s deep divisions over Brexit were laid bare as 74 of the party’s MPS backed an amendment to the EU Withdrawal Bill calling on Britain to seek “full access” to the EU internal market.

Such a move would effectively keep the UK in the single market, in direct contradiction of Labour policy. A further 15 Labour MPS voted against the amendment, even though they were under a three-line whip to abstain.

Laura Smith, a junior shadow Cabinet Office minister, and parliamentary private secretaries Ged Killen, Ellie Reeves, Tonia Antoniazzi and Anna Mcmorrin all resigned shortly before the vote. Later they were joined by Rosie Duffield, also a PPS.

In recent weeks, Mr Corbyn has come under increasing pressure from within his party to back single market membership after the May local elections showed strong support for parties with a clearly defined Brexit stance.

In a direct challenge to Mr Corbyn’s authority, Ms Mcmorrin told him that Labour must “fight for a Brexit deal that will deliver a secure future for our children, protect jobs and the environment”, and that the only way to deliver that was for Britain to stay in the European Economic Area (EEA). Mr Killen said he believed Britain should stay in the EEA and the customs union, both of which are against Labour policy.

Meanwhile, Tory rebels warned Theresa May not to break a promise to give them a “real say” in the outcome of Brexit as the Prime Minister said ministers would be “accountable” to Parliament over the final deal with Brussels.

Mrs May spent yesterday trying to agree a deal with the rebels to avoid a fresh mutiny over the so-called “meaningful vote”, having put her reputation on the line on Tuesday by telling them she would compromise on the issue.

The rebels, led by Dominic Grieve, the former Attorney General, publicly expressed fears of betrayal after Downing Street said one of their key demands was not up for discussion.

Separately, Mr Grieve was forced to dismiss as “rubbish” claims that he was plotting with campaigners supporting a second referendum after he was spotted at a meeting with representatives of Best For Britain, Open Britain and People’s Vote in London yesterday.

Also last night, a deal appeared to be close as Mrs May’s former Europe adviser Sir Oliver Letwin was called in to draft an amendment to the EU Withdrawal Bill that the PM hopes will pass muster with the mutineers.

Mrs May confirmed in Parliament yesterday that the Government would table a new amendment to the EU Withdrawal Bill to address the rebels’ concerns, but insisted she would not agree to anything that would “overturn the will of the British people”.

She said her approach would be guided by the principle that “the Government’s hand in negotiations cannot be tied by Parliament, but we need to be accountable to Parliament”. The rebels want the Government to report back by November if it has not reached a deal with Brussels, and seek Parliament’s approval on how to proceed.

This proposal appeared to be acceptable to Mrs May on the basis that Parliament’s advice would not be binding.

The EU Withdrawal Bill returns to the Lords on Monday, meaning the new amendment must be settled before then.

It is all too easy, with the benefit of hindsight, to mock Francis Fukuyama. Writing at the end of the Cold War, the American academic proclaimed the End of History: ideological competition was over, he argued, and liberal democracy had triumphed as the final, ultimate form of government.

This turned out to be hopelessly optimistic. It is possible, we have discovered, to adopt a version of capitalism, as China and Russia did, without embracing free speech and free elections. But Fukuyama had put his finger on a crucial trend. Globalisation is indeed spreading to politics and bringing about the same sort of convergence we see in every other field, from fashion to food.

This is not happening in the way predicted 29 years ago, when America was the uncontested hegemon and much of the world was still classified as “underdeveloped”. Emerging economies today may be in love with Apple and Mcdonald’s, and are often more pro-capitalist than us, but they – or at least their ruling classes – have proved immune to our political values. In fact, we no longer believe in many of them ourselves, such has been the extent of our philosophical decay.

The shocking reality is that the great democracies, including, tragically, Britain, are becoming steadily less libertarian and less democratic; at the same time, the rising Asian powers are becoming less oppressive overall, primarily thanks to their partial embrace of economic freedoms.

The two models are meeting in the middle, and the result is terrifying. Political systems are becoming less distinct and the old ideological power blocs (such as “the West”) are blurring or even gradually merging into one uniform mush (Bruno Maçães, a former Portuguese minister, talks of the rise of a “Eurasia” dominated by the EU, China and Russia, three entities that share a distrust of liberal democracy). In a brilliant article for Quillette, the political scientist Clay Fuller calls this new consensus “authoritarian liberalism”. He predicts that, if it continues, it will encourage some to push for a nightmarish world superstate on the basis that “effective global governance would be possible for the first time in world history”.

I prefer to call this emergent global political model “managerialism”. If you want to find some of its more vocal proponents, look no further than the pro-eu “rebel” MPS slowly but surely killing off Brexit: their contempt for real democracy is matched only by their preposterous self-regard. They are typical card-carrying authoritarian liberals, convinced that they know better than we do what is good for us.

Managerialism is now the dominant ideology among the educated classes around the world. It is based on the idea that popular voting is fine as long as it doesn’t change anything, of heavy government intervention in a nominally private economy, extensive social control and a move away from traditional, liberal individualism to an obsession with groups.

There is no one managerialist model: it exists on a broad continuum which ranges from semi-liberal democratic to outright dictatorial. It’s not a new concept either, merely the triumph of Thomas Hobbes’s vision for top-down, “enlightened” authoritarianism and the defeat of John Locke’s rights-based, individualistic liberalism. In Britain’s case, this implies undoing many of the political gains of the past few hundred years.

For other nations, managerialism is a vast improvement, and the averaging out of political models across the world a gain for them. North Korea could soon become the perfect poster child: if Donald Trump’s gamble pays off, it will remain a dictatorship but embrace tourism and trade. Dissidents will still be persecuted but the public will no longer live in the Stone Age. Saudi Arabia is another example: it will still be an absolute monarchy but it will treat women less appallingly.

What makes this convergence so striking is that the West is changing just as much as the developing nations. We are giving up on Enlightenment values, largely because we no longer believe in them; bizarrely, some in the West now even look kindly upon Vladimir Putin’s kleptocratic state. In Europe and America, the changes have included a massive increase in the power of judges, unelected central banks that egregiously manipulate the economy, the post-9/11 surveillance states and ever-creeping paternalism and social control.

Even more remarkably, previously defunct ideas are back: there is once again an offence of blasphemy, punishable through Twitterstorms. Free speech is outmoded, seen as a form of oppression. Cultural Marxism is running rampant. Right and Left are embracing identity politics. But it is the EU that has done more than any other institution to undermine genuine liberal democracy. Its nomenklatura has deprived the public of any say in the biggest questions, from immigration to economic policy.

There are two problems with all of this. The first is that managerialism isn’t an efficient form of governance: at some point, the eurozone will collapse, China will undergo a catastrophic financial and economic crisis and Russia will go bust. Elite rule doesn’t work: it is over-exuberant, detached from reality and lacks an errorcorrecting mechanism. William Buckley, the conservative sage, was spot on when he said that he “would rather be governed by the first 2,000 people in the Boston telephone directory than by the 2,000 people on the faculty of Harvard University”.

The second is that managerialism is unpopular. Brexit is being overturned but it won an astonishing victory against a Remain side that massively outspent it. Emmanuel Macron has admitted that the French would vote for Frexit if given half a chance. There is huge, pent-up populist anger across the EU, and the rage of the Brexiteers when they find out they have been conned will be something else. The Italians could detonate the entire edifice and if they don’t somebody else will. Many voters in Asia would love to adopt full fat liberal democracy if only they were given the choice.

It will take time, but countries that refuse to succumb to authoritarian liberalism will be proved right. They will emerge as havens of free-thinking, innovation and stability, and attract capital and talent. I suspect that those that choose to resist the managerialist onslaught will include Switzerland, Australia, Israel and some Scandinavian countries. It is unclear which way America will go. Britain almost broke away; but it seems that the tide of history was too strong for Theresa May’s hapless Government. But history never ends, and supporters of liberal democracy will live to fight another day, in Britain and across the world.