Labour can't stop this being the Brexit election—but they can exploit it

Labour HQ will be asking themselves two questions today: Can we stop this from being a Brexit election and should we try?

It seems from the outset that the answer to the first question is likely to be no. That makes the second part redundant.

Much as Labour would like to run this election as they did in 2017—where they nuzzled both Remainers and Leavers into submission on Brexit then flooded them with post-austerity spending promises—we’re in different territory now.

While for those of us who live and die by the latest download of Brexitcast might not have been fully aware of it at the time, 2017 was somewhat of a lull in the Brexit proceedings. Article 50 had been triggered, sure. But it was all a long way off. Remainers swung behind Labour when it was not particularly Remain because May’s Leave red lines were then seen by them as “Hard Brexit.”

Labour’s manifesto offered a medium Brexit—with an end to Freedom of Movement (and thus the Single Market) that still felt both possible and—to most Remainers at the time—acceptable. Labour offered the softer of the two Brexit options and Brexit seemed both far away and inevitable.

In 2017, once it was clear that the Brexit options were narrowed between two different flavours of semi-flaccid, the election moved onto other issues. And here the Tories—so convinced they were fighting a Brexit election—had few appealing answers. Their key policy to move on from beyond austerity was essentially translated by the electorate as “we’re coming for your house old lady.”

Meanwhile, at outdoor rallies Jeremy Corbyn was shown on TV being cheered by huge crowds (which will be much harder in December) for stating such radical ideas as “it would be quite a good idea to fund the NHS properly” and “perhaps we shouldn’t cut so much money from schools.”

So, 2017 wasn’t a Brexit election but a break from Brexit. One last chance for politics to go back to its traditional corners: left and right. Labour desperately want to see that again, but they won’t.

There is a long list of things Labour will want to speak about before Brexit. But they will only be given the opportunity to do so once they have answered the Brexit question. Until then, Labour will be asked about it everywhere they go. They will have to learn to make the issues they want to talk about part of the Brexit conversation rather than simply ignoring it.

The public realm is damaged to the point where repair is essential, but this is barely talked about. And the investment that came from the EU to our most depressed areas is about to disappear.

The election is going to be held just as the NHS’s now annual crisis kicks in—Labour must stop talk about the NHS just reverting to discussion of lies on buses. They need to show that the Tories can’t be trusted to deal with ever-growing waiting lists and people dying on trolleys.  This year may be worse because there is a growing staff shortage driven by Brexit. That too can become part of Labour’s message on both Brexit and public services.

Because Brexit infects everything it should be easy to make it part of the conversation about everything. Rather than it getting hived off into a meaningless slogan contest between “Get Brexit done” and “Bolllocks to Brexit.”

Everything Labour wants to do is harder if their time in government is actually taken up with negotiating our future relationship with Europe. Everything they want to invest in is made poorer without a democratic decision by the people to remain. It is this bread and butter frame through which Labour should discuss Brexit. Not the SW1 technocratic gossip of votes, motions, extensions and articles.

Labour can reclaim all the radicalism of the 2107 election and incorporate it into the current remain/leave paradigm. And they can do so without adopting the approach of the Lib Dems that may win them accolades of the extreme FBPE crowd but doesn’t speak to the voters that will actually matter in Labour/Tory Marginals.

Labour has to be a party that can make a strong case about better public services and a massive regional and national shift in investment and economic activity. These are the things that will make the difference Labour wants to make in the world.

But they must, quickly, learn to do this through—not despite—a Brexit perspective. Or they will never get a hearing.