With just 25 days left to the 31st of January – the date the UK is scheduled to officially leave the EU, there is still some political wrangling going on both in the Lords and from the Labour opposition.
The House of Lords is the main obstacle, although remainer Lords are in the tricky position that convention dictates they don’t wreck pledges made in the winning Party Manifesto and the scale of the Conservative landslide makes it almost unthinkable they they would derail the bill. What they may do is add on a few amendments. The withdrawal bill is expected to pass the Lords around the 22nd of January.
Meanwhile, in the Commons, Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn has proposed an amendment which would give a two year Brexit delay, extending the transition period to 2023 if a future trade deal with the EU isn’t completed by the 15th of June – the deadline for requesting an extension from the EU. Labour say that this is to restore the power of Parliament if a no deal looks likely at the end of 2020.
There are some major problems with the proposed amendment, not least of which is that it’s hard to see it passing due to the Conservative majority and even if it did Parliament could simply vote to leave anyway later in the year.
There are deeper issues around the amendment however which are nothing to do with Brexit and much more to do with the balance of power in Parliament. Labour are done for for the foreseeable future and that leave no opposition party to temper the Government. That might come as a relief to many who are disillusioned with Parliament’s inability to make a decision over the past couple of years, but it’s not a healthy situation to be in for the long term. Labour needs to retrench and regroup and become a party that people might want to vote for again.
Jeremy Corbyn, in his last few attempts to derail Brexit, is no doing his successor any favours. The country as a whole voted decisively to reject attempts to frustrate the EU Referendum result and Labour needs to radically rethink it’s position. It’s not just on Brexit the party was rejected, but their endless promises which were supposedly fully costed in their manifesto were boosted by a load more promises in the fun up to the election which no one believed were affordable.
Labour have been in trouble ever since the rise of the SNP in Scotland – many traditionally Labour Scottish seats are beyond their grasp and so Labour now need to appeal to the heartlands of England in order to have any chance of power. The working class has changed and much is now what might be considered middle class and that’s another tranche of votes gone. More than anything, the street protests and Momentum backed rallies have given the impression that Labour is winning, but in reality it’s a million or so citizens making a lot of noise and agreeing with each other whilst totally failing to realise the rest of the country’s 60 odd million are quietly unimpressed.
Brexit is now going to happen and in all likelyhood won’t end up pleasing many at all – Remain voters will naturally be gutted whilst many Leave voters will see too many compromises for their liking. That’s life however and it has to be remembered that the future trade deal has to be good for the EU as well as the UK. What’s more important is getting past Brexit and having a political system that works and that does (at least in British politics) depend on having a strong opposition to keep the government in check.
There will doubtless be calls for a change to the biggest minority party getting into Government, but that’s how the first past the post system works. Labour had plenty of time to change to a proportional representation system if they had wanted to and it’s certain that the Conservatives won’t make changes either – a strong argument is that proportional representation takes away the ability to vote out a substandard MP.
Labour have up to five years now to regroup, get rid of Jeremy Corbyn as soon as possible and stop trying to frustrate Brexit which is moving to it’s conclusion. It’s time for Labour to be reborn to represent not the loudest most vocal of it’s members but to shape itself into a party which could, if not govern in five years time, at least become an opposition worthy of the name.
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