An excellent Twitter thread by Alistair King caught my attention yesterday, critiquing Keir Starmer’s supposed new slogan “make Brexit work”. Meanwhile Andrew Adonis summed it up visually with this: “Make Brexit Work” pic.twitter.com/ExqjoKThal — Andrew Adonis (@Andrew_Adonis) November 7, 2021 Aside from the snarky tweet, there is a nugget of […]
Tag: Labour Party
A proposal for Keir Starmer: make politics simple
Does Keir Starmer think Ministers should act legally? We don’t really know. Apparently the public do not think politicians should ask for other politicians’ heads during a health crisis, so that’s Labour’s line: Sir Keir Starmer says he will not be calling for Matt Hancock to resign over the unlawful […]
The Labour Party, the Union Flag, and patriotism
Ah. Here we ago again. “Leak reveals Labour plan to focus on flag and patriotism to win back voters“. And the reactions are pretty predictable too – Clive Lewis MP expresses caution, Ian Dunt tries to separate patriotism from nationalism, Sunder Katwala puts up pictures of Labour leaders with union […]
There’s no way to avoid it: the EU question is going to be on the agenda at the 2024 UK General Election, and so Labour can’t wish away the EU question
On page 218 and 219 of the UK-EU Trade Deal (full PDF here) is the following paragraph (emphasis is mine): In order to ensure an appropriate balance between the commitments made by the Parties in this Agreement on a more durable basis, either Party may request, no sooner than four […]
Why – if there is a Brexit Deal – Labour MPs should abstain
(The original version of this blog post assumed how ratification would proceed was known and clear – thanks to this excellent discussion with George Peretz QC, Nick von Westenholz and Brigid Fowler it seems that is not completely clear, and parts of this blog post have been adjusted accordingly. This […]
Starmer’s steady stability – I’m not sure this is enough
Back in April when he was first elected, I wondered how Keir Starmer – an essentially normal politician – would manage as leader of the UK Labour Party in extraordinary political times. Now we are starting to find out, and the picture is a mixed one. At one level all […]
If Labour were to have a position on Brexit in the UK right now, what should it be?
Even the original timetable for Brexit was ridiculously tight – out by the end of March 2019, and then the future relationship to be concluded 21 months later, by the end of December 2020. Remember that trade negotiations with third countries generally take more than 5 years, sometimes as much […]
Labour should back a People’s Vote, but need not explicitly back Remain
Back in December I wrote that trying to break UK party politics was not the way out of Britain’s Brexit conundrum. The events of this past 7 days underline this even more. Back in December, 117 Tory MPs voted to No Confidence May as Tory leader. 118 voted against her […]
Breaking Britain’s party structure is – for now anyway – not the way out of the short term Brexit impasse
Theresa May and Jeremy Corbyn might be atypical leaders of their respective parties, but in one way they are as traditional as they come: the extent to which they are partisan. Tribal. Defenders of their own parties above pretty much anything else. May emphasised her commitment to the party when […]
Stop your eye rolling over there. This Jeremy Corbyn Brexit interview is important.
Channel 4 interviewed Jeremy Corbyn about Brexit. Apparently they were only allowed to ask him one question, so they asked the same question six times. “Do you honestly believe that Britain is better off outside of the EU?” He cannot answer. Have a watch. "Do you honestly believe that Britain […]
Labour tying itself in a terrible knot on Brexit and the Single Market
“Corbyn sacks three frontbenchers after Single Market vote” was the top story on The Guardian’s website early this morning. The three in question – Slaughter, West and Cadbury – were sacked, while a fourth, Daniel Zeichner, resigned. Like anything to do with Brexit there has been a lot more heat […]
The Labour Party, and immigration in the UK post-EU referendum
One of the most unusual post-EU Referendum stories to date has been the news that UK slaughterhouses face a possible shortage of workers. As the BVA outlines, in the meat hygiene sector some 95% of veterinary surgeons graduated overseas. Britain, it seems, does not train enough of its own veterinary staff […]