advertisement


Brexit: give me a positive effect (2023 ‘Epic Fail’ box set edition)

Update from UKICE - many have not changed their views since 2016, but as manny as 16-20% who voted out have switched sides, compared to only 6% who voted to remain (!). Don't knows and those who did not vote in 2016 now tend to break strongly against Brexit.
 
New David Lammy essay on 'Progressive Realism': https://www.foreignaffairs.com/united-kingdom/case-progressive-realism.

Lammy: "Brexit is settled; a Labour government would not seek to rejoin the EU, the Single Market, or the Customs Union."

According to Wikipedia, in international relations realism is 'the strategic use of ... alliances to boost global influence while maintaining a balance of power'. I would have thought that realism would tell Lammy that the form of Brexit that Johnson 'got done', or perhaps Brexit itself, was a strategic mistake that needs revisiting. Especially, in view of Russia's expansionist invasion of Ukraine, when it comes to maintaining a balance of power.
 
laughingboy said:
New David Lammy essay on 'Progressive Realism': https://www.foreignaffairs.com/united-kingdom/case-progressive-realism.

Lammy: "Brexit is settled; a Labour government would not seek to rejoin the EU, the Single Market, or the Customs Union."

According to Wikipedia, in international relations realism is 'the strategic use of ... alliances to boost global influence while maintaining a balance of power'. I would have thought that realism would tell Lammy that the form of Brexit that Johnson 'got done', or perhaps Brexit itself, was a strategic mistake that needs revisiting. Especially, in view of Russia's expansionist invasion of Ukraine, when it comes to maintaining a balance of power.
Click to expand...
Is this Lammy's view or official Labour Party policy?
 
stevec67 said:
Dead right. We should be making up a decent turnip poultice, that's what you need.
Click to expand...
Mouldy bread and honey works well too.

If you have the luxury of bread hanging around long enough to go mouldy, and if you can find honey given the depleted bee population…..
 
The ennobled, tax dodging non dom resident of France, Rothermere. Get away from the lying greedy elites he said

du8fKxb.jpeg
 
Kirk said:
A bit more on Labour's position.

https://www.ft.com/content/56f9a222-d7ab-4a6f-a8e9-3b7d7cbe9928
Click to expand...
So Labour's position on Europe has Mandelson at its centre:

The future shape of the UK-EU relationship under a Starmer government was discussed in early March at a two-day retreat for EU ambassadors at Stansted Park, an Edwardian stately home in West Sussex... Lord Peter Mandelson, the former EU trade commissioner and Labour cabinet minister, outlined in a keynote speech the party’s approach to Europe if it was to win power. ​

"Mandelson said the party leadership had to be very cautious in public about its red lines on the single market and customs union, but also said that privately there was more flexibility on areas like dynamic alignment with EU rules and submitting to the jurisdiction of the European Court of Justice,” said a person familiar with the contents of the speech. Mandelson said Labour might also look to deepen the relationship with a veterinary agreement and by relinking with the bloc’s carbon trading market in order to avoid frictions caused by the introduction of the EU’s new carbon tax in 2026.​

And within a month of that meeting in 'early March', Labour was already struggling with how to present a 'de facto customs union by another name' as something else: (from Archived FT story from 8 April)

[A] paper from the Eurasia Group political consultancy cited unnamed “senior Labour insiders” as saying the party would seek to revive a high-alignment deal, originally brokered by former prime minister Theresa May but rejected by parliament in 2019, in a bid to boost economic growth.​
“[That] deal is a first-term ambition. A de facto customs union by another name. It is the first step of where we’d want to get to,” one of the insiders reportedly said, adding they were reflecting new internal thinking on the EU relationship within the Labour leadership. [...] Labour quickly denied the briefing...​

I have a bad feeling that despite the superficial clarity of its 'red lines', Labour has not sidelined Brexit in the next election. It has merely presented its opponents with a more insidious line of attack: stealth re-entry into the EU.
 
laughingboy said:
I have a bad feeling that despite the superficial clarity of its 'red lines', Labour has not sidelined Brexit in the next election. It has merely presented its opponents with a more insidious line of attack: stealth re-entry into the EU.
Click to expand...
This seems extremely unlikely, because to do so would be to hand a big stick to the likes of the Daily Hate and to invite them to bet them with it. I would bet my house, my car and my bank account on nothing happening re Brexit should Labour win the forthcoming GE. What *is* likely is some sort of shuffling around the edges to find a practical solution to the worst aspects of the current omnishambles.
 
Any political footwork towards removing customs and immigration barriers involves the quid pro quo of freedom of movement, identified as BINO and vassalage by the seven ERG dwarves, Farage and Briatain’s bent newspaper barons. It’s a dead albatross round Starmer’s neck and I don’t believe he’s ready to upset red wall man and red wall woman who’s voted he’s counting on.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.


advertisement


Back
Top