Brexit Solves Nothing

This post is in response to @owenjones84's recent Guardian article 'I don’t like Brexit – I just don’t see how it can be stopped'.

I'm sure I'm not alone in my disappointment with Labour over Brexit but can you imagine any leader writing a defeatist headline like this? 

Attlee? Wilson? Callaghan? Or go back further - there would be no Labour party if Hardie had said: "I don't like these Conservatives - I just don't see how they can be stopped."

You've asked, Owen, for a "compelling counter argument" for 'reversing' the referendum result, implying there is a compelling argument for Brexit.

Yes, we've had a referendum. But that was it. It was just a referendum. Brexit is not a done deal.

The electorate had a different view in the 2015 General election to that of the 2017 General Election. Why was that? Well, the electorate a a different set of data to ponder and chose accordingly. Yet for some reason, you are having to ask how to challenge the outcome - even perhaps questioning if it can be challenged. 

This is politics. You challenge views you don't agree with - even (or especially) if those views come from the electorate. Particularly if said electorate was made promises that could never be fulfilled.

Anyway, enough of that, it's an argument that will wage until the next generation or so bring some sense to bear.

If Labour really is the progressive force it claims to be, then its leaders need to lead. And they need to bring the electorate with them. Your barracking of those who are actually trying to lead does not help any more than some of the tactics about which you complain.

So as requested, here is my 'compelling counter argument' that UK Labour need to tell the electorate:

Brexit Solves Nothing.

Yes, 'tell' the electorate. It's time to lead. It's time for Labour to expose this con on a nation.

Try it for yourself. Think of any argument for leaving the EU that could not have been already solved or heavily mitigated from Westminster that will be solved post-Brexit. Then think on how many of those issues will be exacerbated post-Brexit.

Immigration, regulation, sovereignty, you name it. None of them will go away as we scrabble for trade deals with blocks and nations that can smell our desperation from the other side of the globe. We will not be the arbiters of regulations. Trade deals will be tied to greater immigration.

Brexit was a failure by Westminster. A failure to communicate. A failure to look further than 'the economy' as a measure of social wellbeing. A failure to implement controls that were available. A failure to collect appropriate tax. A failure to counter the decades of drip, drip, drip anti-EU rhetoric of the gutter media & politicians with the huge benefits membership of the EU has brought to UK citizens.

Labour is currently between a rock and a hard place - likely to lose 30% of its vote no matter which way it eventually swings, but your support will grow as yu expose the reality of the con.

The party has an opportunity to really lead rather than skulking around desperately trying not to offend anyone but doing so anyway. To be the party of honesty and integrity. To acknowledge past mistakes, but more importantly to openly demonstrate that Brexit will compound rather than solve the underlying causes.

Corbyn has the benefit of not being (so) regarded as 'the elite establishment' - he needs to play this card for the benefit of the country, not his personal ideology.

Every benefit of UK membership of the EU needs to be sold to the electorate.

Every concern of the electorate needs to be addressed - first and foremost in Westminster and then by working on a plan to reform those parts of the EU.

History will not look kindly on a party with such an astonishing past of fighting for and implementing huge social benefits, if it continues to stand on the sidelines while those it claims to represent suffer most. 

If Brexit happens, you may win a term off the back of the Conservatives collapse, but do you really think the UK electorate are going to stop believing the lies of our gutter press? You will replace the EU as the scapegoat - this time for the failure of Brexit. Your complicity in that failure will not be rewarded.

Labour needs to be be true to its 'For The Many, Not The Few' mantra rather than enabling a policy that will be 'By The Many, For The Few' but most of all it needs to be honest about the causes and consequences of Brexit.

Brexit. Solves. Nothing.

Full disclosure: I too "had profound reservations about the current incarnation of the EU, and even considered the case for leave" but I dismissed the argument because within two weeks of the start of the referendum campaign it was clear we had a startling choice: to stand with the racists and xenophobes or to stand against them. It's not a particularly subtle view and perhaps a little counter productive, but for me it was a really, really simple choice. We will sort out the other stuff later.

And yes, I know, it should be 'Nothing is solved by Brexit' but we're currently in the soundbite era of politics.