Staying in the single market – and averting the Tory plan to turn Britain into a Singapore-style economy – must be at the heart of Labour’s brexit strategy, writes Progress director Richard Angell
‘We’ll fight to secure single market membership’ are the bold words on the Labour party webpage about the Tories’ failed Brexit plan ahead of the recent election. They remain there to this day. This is the only way of having a ‘job-first Brexit’ and is the basic lifeline needed for British manufacturing to continue. This is all before we consider how we protect the vital income public services receive from the financial services industry and others. As Alison McGovern said at Progress annual conference, staying in the single market is the best anti-austerity policy the Labour party can support right now. If you need more convincing of this, Jeremy Cliffe of the Economic explained it best.
It is therefore perverse that the Labour leadership seem to echo a Tory line about membership of the single market and the European Union that is simply not true. And wrong of Barry Gardiner to say Britain would be better outside the custom’s union. Heidi Alexander puts it better than I ever could in the Guardian today, I suggest you take a read.
Brexit may well be happening but I am yet to be convinced that anyone voted to be poorer, to be less likely to have a job and make it more difficult for their company to feed and be fed by their supply chain. It would be a total misreading of Labour’s historic role as the worker’s party to aid and abet a Tory plan to ruin the economy and damage the incomes of working people. We should listen and understand people’s fears on immigration, and we can act accordingly where the points are fair and the action is possible – as I wrote in a piece last week for the New Statesman. But to support the hardest of Brexits and a Tory plan to turn Britain into a Singapore-style economy would be wrong.
Young people deserve the future they voted for on 8 June 2017. Staying in the single market and the customs union is just the start of it.
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Richard Angell is director of Progress. He tweets at @RichardAngell
NB: The text on Labour’s Brexit page has been amended since this article was written. ‘We’ll fight to secure single market membership’ now reads ‘We’ll fight for tariff-free access to the single market’
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Richard Angell should initially book an appointment with an optician but perhaps a visit to the doctor might prove more fruitful?
The second paragraph of this article starts with a lie: ” ‘We’ll fight to secure membership of the single market’ are the bold words on the Labour party webpage about the Tories’ failed Brexit plan ahead of the recent election. They remain there to this day. ” Regular visitors may well expect distortion and propaganda from Progress but it is essentially counterproductive to then link to an official Labour Party website, that immediately disproves your assertion!
I remain unconvinced,that the use of single quotation marks, rather than double, permits deliberate distortion of original content and allows the author to willfully misinterpret an unambiguous statement. Those who bothered to click on the first link may have discovered that, contrary to Richard’s article, the actual quotation is as follows:
”
We’ll fight for tariff-free access to the single market
We are leaving the EU. That issue has been settled by the British people. The choice in this election is between a Labour Brexit that puts jobs first and a Tory Brexit that will wreck the economy.”
So, apart from the fact that Richard Angell’s false claim regarding words that never appeared on the linked page, on the Labour Party website and would therefore have exceptional difficulty in supporting his statement that: “They remain there to this day.”, this is a largely vacuous and unconvincing article. Par for the course at Progress?
‘Scrutiniser’ you are telling stuff and nonsense. Corbyn and Mcdonnell are contradicting our affiliated unions, Labour MPs, members and voters in their extreme wish for a hard brexit outside of the European single market. No one in our movement wants this outside of their narrow hard left clique and we will not stand aside and let you publish lies without challenging you on it. Just because you align with UKIP doesn’t mean the rest of us do.
The vote for Brexit is a vote to leave the European Union. This leaves us options to be like Norway and Switzerland, who are not in the European Union but retain their membership of the single market. “Full access” is a meaningless non-promise. Zimbabwe has “full access” to the European single market. But it doens’t have the benefits of being a single market member. That is not the future I or the majority of the Labour community want.
Open Britain Member, I note that you chose not to address the fact that Richard Angell was caught out by not telling the truth about the article referenced on the official Labour Party website!
I assume that you actually bothered to read the 2017 Labour Party Manifesto but if not I would suggest familiarisng yourself with pages 23 (paragraph 3) and page 28 (paragraph 2).
The pre-election Labour Party webpage on Brexit expands on this, as follows:
”We’ll fight for tariff-free access to the single market
We are leaving the EU. That issue has been settled by the British people. The choice in this election is between a Labour Brexit that puts jobs first and a Tory Brexit that will wreck the economy.”
So the policy espoused at Open Britain is contrary to Party policy. Some of the more intellectually challenged MPs featured on this website do not appear to understand the difference between membership of the Single Market (conferring voting rights) and access, of any other form that excludes this privilege.
This has been discussed ad infinitum, over on Labour List, with supporting documentary evidence and backed by respected legal opinion. Unfortunately, Open Britain (website) includes no coherent intellectual or legally supported case but instead requests that people sign petitions and/or protest.
If you wish to be taken seriously then it is essential to up your game, rather than to indulge the vanity of a few centre-Right MPs. I would personally prefer to stay within a reformed EU and voted for Remain in the referendum. However, the UK voted for Brexit and both of the main political parties have stated, both pre and post-referendum, that they would respect the result.
Developing contingency plans, in the event of an unviable negotiated deal with the EU, is sensible given that Parliament has the option of rejecting a bad deal and even remaining within the EU. Public opinion has not yet moved convincingly far enough, for either Party to include a pledge to remain within the EU and still be relatively confident of achieving power. Things may change but stupid gestures and unwarranted amendments, contrary to Party policy only make you look like bad losers or perhaps with another agenda?
It would be good if you could make a logically coherent and intellectual argument, backed by respected legal opinion, rather than dishing out insults. I await with anticipation but not much hope.
The sentiments expressed in the article would carry a little more weight if it was not a dead cert. that the EU’s single market is being used as a proxy for Corbyn oppositionism.
You cannot really blame them for it though as they always been consistent in preferring to bring down the leadership than they ever were in adopting the spirit of those whose politics positions them alongside so many others opposing Labour throughout the press and media.
No. We believe everyone in Britain’s future is better inside the single market. Not everything is about Jeremy Corbyn. We went out on the streets and worked hard in the referendum campaign. How dare you try to denigrate our beliefs as a facade.