WHY CORBYN’S POISONED APPLE WOULD KILL THE SPIRIT OF BREXIT
Jeremy Corbyn’s intervention on Brexit yesterday could easily be dismissed as a tawdry Pr stunt. In a letter to the Prime minister, he set out five negotiating demands he said Theresa may must meet before Labour will support her deal.
Spin doctors even invited in a photographer to capture the moment he signed, and the resulting pictures showed him sitting at his Westminster desk with a copy of the 585-page withdrawal agreement on show. (Has he read it? I’d be very surprised.)
In his letter, Mr Corbyn claims his intention was to secure a ‘sensible agreement that can win the support of Parliament and bring the country together’. The message was clear: Mr Corbyn is a serious politician, even a statesman, and is acting in the national interest. Believe that if you like – but remember, this is the man who recently refused to meet mrs may to even discuss Brexit.
His posturing is fundamentally dishonest. rather than reaching out across party divides, he is acting in his own narrow interests.
He was happy to largely sit out the 2016 referendum campaign after his advisers concluded he had little to gain from taking a position. Nevertheless, after months of sitting on the fence, his move is hugely significant.
On one level, Mr Corbyn is driving a wedge into the Tory Party. His demand for a customs union and ‘close alignment’ with the single market is exactly what a significant number of ‘soft Brexit’ Tories want. One, Nick Boles – an advocate of a ‘Norway-style’ halfin, half-out deal – welcomed the overture as a ‘big step to a cross-party compromise’.
Several senior ministers, including in all likelihood Work and Pension Secretary Amber rudd and Business Secretary Greg Clark, share his view. But for very good reasons, Mrs May will desperately try and resist swallowing mr Corbyn’s poisoned apple.
She still argues forcefully that a permanent customs union will make trade deals with NON-EU countries all but impossible to strike after we leave. Could Liam Fox conceivably continue in his current role as International Trade Secretary? It seems unlikely.
In addition, tying Britain close to the single market after Brexit would mean swallowing vast reams of EU law, without any influence over them. That would infuriate sovereignty specialists such as michael Gove.
Downing Street officials also fear that in all likelihood, Brussels would demand continued free movement of labour as its price. This would break mrs may’s reddest of red lines.
And any outcome resembling Norway’s comes with vast annual contributions to the EU budget. Indeed put simply, how would such a deal come close to upholding the promise of the referendum of taking back control of Britain’s money, borders and laws?
But Mrs May’s resistance to such a change of course is not just principled, it is also deeply pragmatic. Accepting Mr Corbyn’s proposal would mean the Pm tearing up the Tory manifesto. eurosceptic MPS would mutiny, and ministers resign. Jacob reesmogg has predicted that if these events unfold, the Conservative Party split would be as devastating as that following the passage of the Corn Laws in the mid-19th century, which left the Tories out of power for more than a quarter of a century.
Needless to say, this is mr Corbyn’s dream scenario. Brexit goes through with the Tory Party in ruins and he sweeps to victory in a general election. But his act of repositioning was significant for another reason: it damaged mrs may’s attempts to secure concessions from the EU. It was timed to perfection, as the Pm arrived in Brussels in search of something she can offer eurosceptic Tories.
EU leaders can point to mr Corbyn’s letter and argue that if she would change course, mrs may could get Brexit through the Commons. yesterday, not content with having insulted Brexiteers by declaring they deserve a ‘special place in hell’, EU Council chief Donald Tusk was quick to seize on mr Corbyn’s intervention. Twisting the knife, he said it ‘could be a way out of the current impasse’.
FOR all these reasons, mr Corbyn’s cynical manoeuvre could yet prove effective. However, it also comes with risks. By stating his position, he has enraged second referendum supporters on his own side and increased the prospect of a Labour split.
Party members are overwhelmingly proremain – particularly the youthful, idealistic momentum-types who flocked to the Corbyn banner in 2017, but millions of Labour voters backed Leave. membership is down ten per cent in a year. Are these disenchanted remainers? A 2009 video unearthed this week showed mr Corbyn warning of the threat of a ‘european empire’ and claimed the EU was creating a ‘military Frankenstein’.
many Labour remainers will see yesterday’s letter as a grave betrayal. Significantly, his proposal also removes from Labour’s list of conditions that any Brexit deal must deliver the ‘exact same benefits’ of staying in the EU. It makes the prospect of mr Corbyn acting as a ‘handmaiden to Brexit’, as many remainer MPS on his own side fear, all the more likely.
The Blairite ‘ second referendum’ faction reacted with visceral hostility. MP Owen Smith threatened to leave the party, and warned that ‘a lot’ of other MPS are thinking the same. Chuka Umunna said mr Corbyn’s position was ‘totally demoralising’. Will they back him in a leadership challenge, or at a general election?
The Labour leader, while trying to undermine mrs may, may find he has done worse, and more long-lasting damage to himself.