The SNP, Lib Dems, Plaid Cymru and Greens accused Labour of "abdicating responsibility" for a potentially disastrous hard Brexit.
The SNP, Lib Dems, Plaid Cymru and Greens announced today they’d work together “in the national interest” to oppose Britain leaving the single market.
Labour declined to take part in the cross party talks that came up with the agreement, however, Jeremy Corbyn saying last night that it was not possible for the UK stay in the single market after Brexit.
The joint statement from the leaders of the SNP, Lib Dems, Plaid Cymru and Greens accused the Labour leadership of ignoring their own members, 87 per cent of whom said they wanted Britain to remain in the single market in a recent poll.
Failing to oppose Brexit would be an “abdication of responsibility”, the statement said, and would make Labour “just as culpable” as the Tories for the lasting damage a hard Brexit would do.
The SNP’s leader at Westminster, Ian Blackford, called the Labour leadership “pathetic” for not attending the talks, saying:
“Jeremy Corbyn has failed to show any leadership whatsoever, and is now rejecting this crucial chance to build a cross-party coalition in the national interest.”
The joint statement from Ian Blackford MP, Vince Cable MP, Caroline Lucas MP, and Liz Saville-Roberts MP in full:
“Tory plans for an extreme Brexit represent an unprecedented threat to our economy that would destroy hundreds of thousands of jobs, and damage the incomes, livelihoods, and living standards of millions of people across the UK.
“Time is running out to avoid this economic catastrophe. There are now just ten months before a deal is to be in place between the UK and EU. Ten months to put the brakes on plans to drag us out of the single market and customs union and to avoid the lasting harm this would cause.
“Analysis from the Bank of England, Fraser of Allander Institute, the London School of Economics and many others, have revealed the devastating extent of a hard Brexit or ‘no deal’ scenario for Scotland, England, Wales, and Northern Ireland.
“Leaving the single market will cost jobs. Over three million UK jobs are linked to trade with the EU – one in every ten jobs. There is no such thing as a “jobs-first” Brexit that includes terminating our single market membership – these outcomes are incompatible.
“Protecting jobs, incomes, workers’ rights and the environment is central to our efforts in keeping the UK in the single market. We warmly welcome the Trade Union Congress’ position which echoes these sentiments and hope to work with them in the months ahead.
“The UK government’s lack of preparation represents the chaos at the heart of the Brexit process. It is a disgrace more than 18 months after the UK voted to leave the EU, the government has not yet published an analysis of the economic impact.
“It is families, workers, businesses and farmers that will ultimately pay the price with a drastically restricted international market, lower wages, higher food and fuel prices and a poorer standard of living.
“With the clock ticking, it is now more important than ever that we have a united and effective opposition holding the UK government to account, and working together in the national interest to prevent the most damaging excesses of a hard Brexit or no deal scenario.
“We are jointly committed to providing that opposition, and call on Labour to join with us – to fail to do so would be an abdication of responsibility, and would make Labour just as culpable for the lasting damage a hard Brexit would do to UK jobs and prosperity.
“Today, we call on the Prime Minister to dismiss any chance of a ‘no deal’ scenario. The possibility must be firmly off the table.
“We will work together in the Commons alongside Members from all political parties to protect the UK economy and prevent any attempts to drag Scotland, England, Wales and Northern Ireland out the single market.
“Moving forward together, we will seek to meet with key stakeholders, such as the TUC and business groups, and the devolved administrations including the London Assembly, to express Parliament’s cross-party desire to avoid the damage that Brexit will cause, and encourage all efforts to avoid such an outcome.”
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10 Responses to “Opposition parties have united against hard Brexit. Why aren’t Labour joining them?”
greg
Let me get this straight – Labour’s electoral chances have been massively improved by the raising of the new Messiah, in the form of JC, to the Labour leadership.
Jeremy Corbyn’s political life has been partly defined by his antipathy towards the European Union – a principle that has seemingly been discarded as a result of his new position (some anti-EU, pro-pleb champion he turned out to be)
I know of JC’s dislike of the EU, most of the UK politically aware population know that JC has voted against any EU progress in this country, and yet an overwhelming majority of the pro-EU Labour membership have pinned their hopes on JC.
Can somebody please sort this out – we lesser mortals outside the bubble are all a little confused.
Boffy
Greg,
This is not particularly difficult to understand. Corbyn, like many on the Left adapted to the nationalist agenda that was spread by Stalinism like a virus in the European labour movement as a consequence of the theory of Socialism in One Country, developed by Stalin in the 1920’s, and which became dogma for Stalinist parties after WWII, when the USSR stitched up its deal with imperialism for “peaceful coexistence”. It meant that the Stalinist parties would not pursue international socialism and socialist revolution, but would act to limit the working class in their own countries to peaceful, national social-democratic reforms, thereby turning themselves into timid social-democratic parties. The role of the French Communist Party in May ’68, is a class example of that.
These “national roads to socialism” fitted well with the existing Fabian, parliamentary reformist agenda of those social-democratic elements within the Labour Party, such as the Bennites, whose focus was always upon the role of Parliament in pursuing their agenda for social-democratic change within a national framework, and not on the role of the working-class itself as a global class. The fact that even such a radical social-democratic agenda cannot be accomplished within national borders, was something they simply sought to ignore, but which reality forces us to recognise from time to time, as recently in the case of Greece, and previously in the case of France.
In the post-war period most of the Left outside the Communist Party did NOT have a policy of opposing Britain joining the then Common Market, recognising that such opposition was nationalistic Little Englander chauvinism. But, in the 1970’s, the remaining specific gravity of the Stalinists and the Bennite Left within the most militant sections of the working-class forced groups like the SWP, and MIlitant to adapt to it, in order not to lose the support they had been building up amongst those sections.
Corbyn, especially under the influence of those Stalinists within his backroom, retains that view. But, the nationalism inherent with the view of someone like Corbyn is not at all the same as the nationalistic view of a Farage or Davies, even if the immediate consequence turns out to be the same. The latter actually disparage foreign workers, and actively are hostile to them, in the same way that they are hostile to the interest of British workers. Corbyn on the other hand is not at all hostile subjectively to foreign workers, but the implication of any programme to build social democracy or socialism within national borders, necessarily has that consequence, whether it is because nationalisation is a programme that seeks to protect capital within specific national borders at the cost of workers in other countries, or whether the imposition of measures such as import controls or immigration controls, not only protect British capital at the expense of those foreign workers, but overtly send out the message that the enemy of British workers, the cause of their problems is not capitalism, but foreigners.
Yes, Corbyn was seen as a radical alternative by many who joined and voted for the party. But, many of those who did so were willing to subordinate their opposition to his continued nationalistic streak on the basis of this wider radicalism, and on the basis that he had been led to advocate remaining in the EU, and was the best hope of preventing at least a hard Brexit following the referendum. Corbyn’s opposition to the EU had never been the same as that of a Farage. Corbyn’s opposition to those elements of the EU, which promote the interests of capital over the interest of labour, are valid, for example. The point, however, being that the response to that is not to delude workers into the belief that the British state is any more favourable to workers interests than is the EU, but is to fight alongside workers across the EU to transform the EU, and to promote an agenda of reforms to support workers interests across the continent, rather than allow ourselves to be divided along national borders.
Corbyn’s agenda during the referendum campaign was to promote this latter notion of the need for workers across the EU to work together for this common programme. Its why the Tory media, and the Labour Right were so hostile to that message, and sought to hide it from public view. Its necessary now for all those who came into the party on the basis of a radical agenda, and an internationalist perspective of hostility to Brexit, to draw out the logic of Corbyn’s position, and to push him and the leadership further in the direction of an active campaign to join with those other workers across the EU, and that requires that Labour also adopt a position of remaining in the EU, and actively opposing Brexit, so as to do so.
greg
@Boffy,
You are a seriously deluded individual – and appear to be like that bearded individual that stubbornly stands on my street corner selling Socialist Worker – or whatever.
My first duty is to my family, and then friends and neighbours – you rattling on about global solidarity isn’t going to sway me, I’m afraid.
I believe in national democracy, and although the UK’s leaves a lot to be desired, I’ll stick with it.
I have as much contempt for your international socialism as I do for our own Tory aristocracy: you’re welcome to it. Because, as Orwell portrayed, power corrupts, and I’ve noticed over my lifetime that when the pigs gain access to the house, they prove quite as capable of standing on two trotters and drinking champagne.
Boffy
Greg,
You say,
“My first duty is to my family, and then friends and neighbours – you rattling on about global solidarity isn’t going to sway me, I’m afraid.
I believe in national democracy, and although the UK’s leaves a lot to be desired, I’ll stick with it.”
You are not protecting your family friends and neighbours – unless, of course, you are a part of the global capitalist class – by cutting yourself off from the rest of the global working-class, and it is you that is seriously deluded if you think you are. No amount of British democracy, even were it a workers democracy, and not the current bourgeois democracy that protects the interests of capital, could do anything about global capital undermining it by a run on the Pound, by starving Britain of capital, or trade, in the way, for example, the US did in imposing an embargo on Cuba. No amount of even a perfect British democracy can even do anything in the end about the ability of multinational corporations to avoid tax, because that can only be done on the basis of widespread international co-operation, and a division into national borders will only encourage a competitive race to the bottom on that, as with workers pay and conditions etc. No amount of even a perfect British democracy can do anything about problems of global pollution, which has no respect for national borders, or anything to stop climate change, with again a division into national bunkers only encouraging a race to the bottom of environmental standards for the purpose of lowering costs, as already seen with Trump’s implementation of your ideology in the US.
And, ultimately, as countless countries across the globe from Latin America, to the Middle East have found out, even a radical nationalist agenda can be enough to provoke a military response from the defenders of the interests of global capital. Remember in the 1970’s, even a leftish, social-democratic Italian Communist Party, that looked potentially set to form a government was enough to get the US to announce openly that if it was, the US would do all in its power to destabilise Italy. As Britain found out in WWI and II, its dependence on trade, and isolated position as an island in the Atlantic Ocean makes it extremely susceptible to any kind of blockade or embargo. The only realistic answer that British workers have to any of those actions is the solidarity and active support of their fellow workers in Europe and elsewhere in the globe.
Martyn Wood-Bevan
Totally agree with Boffy here and find some of the responses completely patronising, judgemental and out of order. Jeremy is quite right not to unduly side with the virulent remainers but mark out a unique position which meets the potential of the majority of voters. People still seem stuck on a binary leave/remain view and try to fit Jeremy into one or the other. He is the only one who seems to try and both deal with the immigration issue AND the economic issue, the split between middle-class remainers and working-class leavers. He voted Remain and said he would again, but still people respond to him as if he is a leaver.