On Labour’s approach to Brexit: this is something I genuinely struggle with because on one hand I want to see them call out Brexit and the damage it has brought, but I also think there is a longer term strategy that Starmer is following.
I think his primary motivation is to win the next election and avoid getting destroyed in the right wing press by coming out fully against Brexit. Tactically, it would make more sense to do that because once they are in power, it would be a less encumbered path towards rejoining the Customs Union and Single Market. It could very well just happen but isn’t expressed in those terms to keep the flag shaggers asleep.
There is a real danger that by coming out fully against Brexit now, it will just reignite the Brexit morons and put the fight back on the agenda. As horrific as it is to see all of the damage wrought on the country, it does have the effect of shutting them up as they are forced to deal with the reality of Brexit meaning that the slogans like “leave means leave” and “sovereignty” falling into their rightful places of history as I’ll conceived bad ideas. Even though the polls rightly show dwindling support for Brexit, you don’t want to give the Brexit loons any basis to galvanise public support and re-litigate an argument that has been overwhelmingly trounced.
My hope is that Starmer is playing the long game, holding his nose with some of the things he is saying but is keeping in mind the most important objectives above all else.
It definitely doesn’t help when he uses talking points like loosening the reliance on cheap labour when that is something the Brexiters were arguing (although many of them were curiously silent on low wages prior to the referendum). It also doesn’t help when he says he wants to “Make Brexit work” as it puts him into the same category as the ideologues who won’t admit that Brexit will never work. He runs the risk of being mired in the delusional camp of people who can’t own up to the fundamental reality of Brexit.
My best guess is that he is aware that he is all too aware of the shifting sands of public mood and when the poverty and deprivation gets to a certain point, rejoining will be completely in controversial and will be welcomed. The landscape is already changing with people beginning to own up to the stupidity of it and disavowing themselves from it and there is every reason to think it will continue. It’s how you present that journey now that matters and lead people towards evolving their thinking against the hammer blows of reality.
