I have news for pundits and the commentariat. Brexit no longer means Brexit. Hard Brexit is now a corpse — it was put to the sword by British Prime Minister Theresa May’s own hand when she conceded to a two-year transition period with her speech in Florence last Friday .
So, contrary to what much of the media seems to think, the really big Brexit story is not what’s happening on the floor of the Labour party conference in Brighton this week. The real elephant in the room is that the arch-Brexiteers are now tearing off their blinkers and strapping on their parachutes instead. Even then, their belief that buying more time will miraculously deliver a safer place to land is as deluded as their Brexit proposition.
But watching the Tories pull back from their harakiri mission with our economy is reason for those of us in the Labour resistance to take heart. The death of their hard Brexit has opened up the political horizon and a new locus of debate which is reconfiguring as one between transitional or slow Brexit, versus no Brexit at all. The slow Brexit being proposed will no more prevent the economic, political and social devastation and bonfire of workers’ rights than hard Brexit. It will simply draw out the uncertainty and pain. The ploy to buy transition time is an admission by May that the Tories have a very real Brexit problem: it’s simply not a viable economic plan for Britain.
It is not true that there is no debate about Brexit at the Labour conference. Fringe event after fringe event has grappled with what to do about the B-word. None more so than the Transport Salaried Staffs’ Association union’s rally on Sunday evening, which called for an end to the exploitation of workers rather than an end to free movement of EU citizens.
The rally drew speakers from across the Labour party and movement who refuse to be cowed by a reactionary and frankly marginal referendum vote into accepting that we must all now participate in an act of (inter)national self-harm.
Among those who have united with trades unionists are London mayor Sadiq Khan; Labour MEPs Lucy Anderson, Richard Corbett and Seb Dance; and MPs Tulip Sadiq, Rupa Huq, Geraint Davies and Alison McGovern. We have come together to form a Labour coalition in defence of freedom of movement.
Tulip Sadiq, who represents Hampstead and Highgate, asked how she was supposed to discriminate against her 25,000 EU constituents and not defend their human right to free movement. Geraint Davies, most of whose constituents voted to leave Europe, spoke of how in the general election he told them not to vote for him if they minded him sticking up for EU membership and the 20,000 plus jobs in Swansea which depend on it. He saw his majority increase. It was the same tale for Alison McGovern, whose touch-and-go marginal Wirral South seat is now a stronghold despite her outspoken defence of the EU and the Vauxhall car and component jobs it confers on people in the area and beyond.
Sustaining party future
The Irish Labour party leader Brendan Howlin was with us to implore his sister party to find the strength to speak plainly for Ireland: unless we retain a customs union, the border will return. There is no other way. Jeremy Corbyn and John McDonnell have helped mainstream Labour’s fringe. It’s where reporters should go to find the news of how we do the new politics.
It is in these campaigns, born on the edges of the conference, that Labour nurtures its future talent, and sustains and grows its future. The numbers and passion on show this year tell me that Labour’s current position on Brexit is simply unsustainable. Labour’s free movement coalition will grow from strength to strength. We are already planning rallies up and down the country. We will make the case against the scapegoating of migrants that the Tory dog whistle has created. We will stand shoulder to shoulder with our EU sisters and brothers against Tory Brexit, and for a brighter future for all who live within our shores.
The best Brexit plan now is staying put. Fortunately, this is what the Labour party agreed at the conference last year, when a motion, carried overwhelming, said this couldn’t be ruled out. Our new coalition will build the narrative and lead Labour to a credible, and inevitable, stay-put plan.
— Guardian News & Media Ltd
Manuel Cortes is general secretary of the Transport Salaried Staffs’ Association union.
