Britain’s future after Brexit

In recent months, much energy from pundits and politicians has been expended on debating not Brexit itself and its implications, but instead parliamentary procedure, court judgments and further questions of process. With the triggering of Article 50, the real substance of the debate begins. It ushers in a new phase of uncertainty, as the Three Brexiteers march to Brussels with little clue of what deal they will be able to secure for Britain. Labour can play a critical role in this period. As Britain and parliament deliberate on our precarious future, there has never been more need for a strong Opposition prepared to challenge the government, and provide a clear, coherent alternative.

So far Tory ministers have demonstrated a worryingly authoritarian streak in their treatment of parliament, resisting scrutiny wherever possible and refusing to countenance a truly meaningful vote on the final terms of Brexit. There has been no attempt to bring opponents on side—the views of 48 per cent of voters have been dismissed, while those of the 52 per cent have been blithely misinterpreted as a call for a hard Brexit that could bring about economic catastrophe. And now the survival of the UK itself is at stake, as the SNP launch a predictable and opportunistic bid for a second independence referendum, and a hard border in Ireland looks a real possibility.

In its desperation to pull up the drawbridge and cut immigration from the European Union, the government has conceded that we will be leaving the single market. Exiting the Customs Union will surely follow. The Brexit White Paper states the government’s intention to pursue “a new strategic partnership with the EU” with little detail on what this might look like. There is a real danger that we will be left dependent on World Trade Organisation (WTO) rules. I am not comforted by Boris Johnson’s assessment that this would be “perfectly OK,” not least because, as research from the campaign Open Britain has shown, it would leave us with an inferior trade arrangement with the EU compared to every other G20 nation. Such an arrangement would include tough barriers to trade and would represent a reckless gamble.

Prime Minister Theresa May also seems to be placing great faith in striking a trade deal with billionaire tycoon and American President Donald Trump. This is the man who asserted in his (admittedly ghost-written) book Trump: The Art of the Deal that “my style of deal-making is quite simple and straightforward. I aim very high, and then I just keep pushing and pushing and pushing to get what I’m after.” Trump’s desire to strike bilateral trade deals reflects his promise to “put America first,” as the United States will inevitably be the largest player. I’m not holding my breath that this will be a good deal for Britain. That some in the government refer to this as “Empire 2.0” merely demonstrates that they are trapped in a nostalgic parallel universe.

So in the Labour Party we have our work cut out for us. We must continue to put real pressure on the government and ensure that any future trade deals work in Britain’s interests. Then there are the myriad other questions on the UK’s future. What will happen to EU nationals residing in the UK, and UK nationals in the EU? How can we replace EU structural funds, which have played an enormous role in regenerating some of the most deprived areas of the country? What about workers’ rights and environmental protections? What about our membership of organisations like Euratom and the European Medicines Agency and the European Investment Bank? The answers to these questions will define the health of our economy and society for years to come, and we cannot afford to get them wrong.

As well as holding the government to account on specific details of the withdrawal negotiations, Labour also has a responsibility to articulate an ambitious vision for our post-Brexit economy. Both the prime minister and the chancellor have said that if ministers are not offered an acceptable deal by Brussels, they will be prepared to “change our model to regain competitiveness,” which sounds like code for slashing taxes and transforming Britain into some shady tax outlier.

This is not an outcome that would be acceptable to the Labour Party or the British people. At a time of massive cuts to our public services, stagnating real wages and increasing workplace insecurity, the last thing we need is to turn Britain into a deregulated free-for-all.

The working-class areas that voted for Brexit did not do so because they wanted to transform Britain into the Cayman Islands, but because they sensed the need to break with the prevailing economic settlement, where the forces of globalisation and deindustrialisation have hollowed out the workforce and stripped communities of their identities. Another reason was undoubtedly the huge regional discrepancy in government cuts, which has caused misery in some of the most deprived areas of the country. It is the faults in this settlement that we in the Labour Party must now turn to.

We must lay out a new Marshall Plan to rescue working-class communities, where current trends of mounting inequality and workplace insecurity are reversed and replaced by stable, well-paid employment for all. We must address the threats of automation and digital disruption, and ensure that technological change creates rather than destroys jobs. We must revitalise the trade union movement to ensure that it represents an increasingly atomised workplace, and invest in our education system to equip our workers with skills for the future.

There are two possible futures for Britain after Brexit. We face this choice having made ourselves a less attractive place to do business: to build, manufacture, train and research. We can either try to alter our superficial attractiveness by constantly reducing taxes and regulation—which is the Tory way. Or we can try to renew the basis of our economic prosperity, by remaining a highly skilled, highly educated, highly productive society in many sectors and across our great nation. I know which one I would advocate.

So, together, we can address the urgent need for national renewal to mend the cracks in our society that Brexit has exposed. As we negotiate our withdrawal from the EU, Labour can and must articulate its own vision of what sort of country we want to be. We cannot leave this task to the Tories, whose toxic cocktail of free-market individualism and little-Englander isolationism will do nothing for Labour’s focus: the many, not the few.