Labour’s Brexit fudge

“Time is running out for Remainer MPS who want to prevent a hard Brexit,” said Stephen Bush in the New Statesman. Hung parliaments provide opportunities for nimble backbenchers, but when Labour’s Chuka Umunna last week put forward an amendment to the Queen’s Speech demanding that the Government guarantee the UK’S place in the EU single market after Brexit, it was rejected. Just 101 MPS voted for it, and “a mere 49 Labour MPS joined the rebellion” after the leadership ordered them to abstain; three shadow ministers, Catherine West, Ruth Cadbury and Andy Slaughter, were sacked for defying the party whip. The result was a “thumping” parliamentary endorsement of the Government’s Brexit strategy.

It is a sign of how dramatically things have changed in British politics that Jeremy Corbyn “can sack a clutch of rebel shadow ministers with scarcely a murmur of protest from anyone”, said Sean O’grady in The Independent. Even when the party is split, “Labour somehow manages to evince an air of calm, and in the case of Corbyn, a prime ministerial decisiveness.” Still, the Umunna amendment did draw attention to an unfortunate truth: that Labour “is making a fine opposition and protest movement, but it is still in no position to govern on the most important issue facing the country – Brexit”. Corbyn and his allies “finessed” the matter “masterfully” during the election, managing to sound both pro-remain and pro-brexit. And yet the Corbyn “fudge” – promising to retain “access” to the single market while also restricting free movement of workers – is “a nonsense”, and he must know it. European leaders have made it abundantly clear that there is no such deal on offer. The truth is that Corbyn is, at heart, a Eurosceptic, said The Economist. “He rails against globalisation and free trade, of which the EU’S single market is one of the world’s shining examples.” EU state aid rules would scotch his plans to nationalise or subsidise industries. And his current strategy – “appearing to be pro-eu while trying to ignore Brexit” – is unlikely to be sustainable in the longer term.

Even “a card-carrying Remainiac” like myself can see that Umunna’s move was pointless, said Jonn Elledge in The Guardian. Now is clearly not the time to reverse Brexit. “Even the most grumpy and pro-european of Tory MPS was not going to vote against the Government on the Queen’s Speech.” Umunna has merely revealed the weakness of the Remain faction: with less than a sixth of MPS, he’s also pinned down Labour, when it would have been better off with “the flexibility to respond to events”. In truth, Parliament may never get the chance to challenge Theresa May’s Brexit, said Adam Boulton in The Sunday Times. Unless there is another election, MPS will only get their “meaningful vote” in two years’ time, “on the deal that is agreed, or not, with Brussels”. When the moment of truth comes, there is a good chance that “it will shatter both main parties beyond repair”.