Labour must stop trying to sabotage Brexit

The party should listen to its core supporters and commit to a fast, clean EU departure

For a strong supporter of leaving the European Union like me, who represents a Remain-voting constituency, it is easy to be downhearted amid the Westminster establishment bubble, steeped as it is in metropolitan liberal journalism. Most of my Labour colleagues seem to take their opinions only from The

Guardian, the Today programme and Newsnight.

The negativity of the reporting on the EU negotiations from these outlets is relentless. Anything good is “despite Brexit” and bad news is always attributed “to Brexit”. Michel Barnier’s words are treated as gospel, while UK negotiators are continuously undermined.

However, in the wider UK it is very different. Three days before the referendum I talked to two senior political editors who both predicted Remain would win. I said Leave would win and told them their problem was they didn’t get out of London enough. That is just as true today.

So I start 2018 optimistic and confident that despite the almost hysterical doom-mongering of Tony Blair and Lords Heseltine and Adonis, those who voted Leave are even more sure they were right, and just want the Government to get on with it.

Now is the time for Labour to present its vision of how good a place the newly independent UK could be. My Remain colleagues who spoke in the Withdrawal Bill seem to believe, for example, that all workers rights came from the EU rather than by the campaigning of the trade union movement. They forget the opportunities we would have had if we had kept our independence. Those opportunities are now before us again and they are real.

Take, for example, developing and promoting our own foreign and trade policies. Mutually beneficial bilateral and multilateral deals are within our reach once we cease to be in the EU. The biggest economies in the world are all outside the EU. As an independent country we will have the right to negotiate mutuallyoptimum trade terms with them while also re-invigorating our links with the Commonwealth, which have been so carelessly neglected for more than 40 years.

I look forward to regaining full parliamentary democracy. We British people will be able to vote out a Government whose policies we dislike. At present we cannot replace our overarching Brussels government – the unelected Commission that is the only body empowered to initiate EU legislation affecting all EU countries.

Then there is the bonus of regaining control of our legal system, with UK judges no longer being overridden by the EU Court of Justice. We will also set our own immigration policy, which can allow us to recruit overseas workers from the whole world depending only on the skills and knowledge we actually need. After all, our current system is inherently discriminatory as it allows entry on the basis of nationality.

We will regain control of other aspects of public and private life that are currently the preserve of the EU. Some fear this will threaten our NHS, the environment, or social and employment policies. But who we elect as a government is up to the people and the EU will no longer be the excuse for bad policies.

The choice Labour faces today is either to embrace a brilliant future that will see a renaissance in UK political, social, economic, and cultural life, or to help the EU inflict a punishing set of rules and regulations in a so-called “deal”.

Surely Labour must understand that the EU 27 is already changing. Strong forces are moving it towards a centralised financial, economic and political entity while at the same time countries such as Poland are beginning to assert their own state rights. For the first time the EU can no longer take its future survival for granted.

This may be hard for Remainers to accept – especially those who have built their careers on thriving in the comfortably rewarding embrace of the EU institutions. But for those who want to be able to implement some of the more radical ideas in Labour’s manifesto – such as re-nationalising the railways – it is a no-brainer. If Labour is to form a government in the future we need to put a convincing vision of the future we want in front of the public.

The Labour leadership now needs to listen to the voices of its core supporters outside London and commit to a fast, clean “Leave”. The people were asked and the answer was given. In a democracy that is enough.

Labour must stop the farce of pretending to accept the referendum result while doing everything possible to sabotage it. Lord Adonis, unelected as he is, despises what he would call “ordinary people”. He should be ignored and Labour should now get on with the work of creating the vision of an outward-looking progressive and independent United Kingdom.