Labour Party Chaos, if Jeremy Corbyn formally commits to customs union post-Brexit, he will be making a massive unrecoverable mistake, in Scotland, Richard Leonard, Scottish leader faces pressure by his political enemies, you would think being the ‘third party’ in Scotland would produce some kind of clarity for Labour especially when neither a Westminster or Holyrood election is imminent

Dear All

Remaining in a customs union or the single market would be a "deceit", on the 23^rd June 2016, the British people voted to leave the EU after over 40 years of membership. Since the historic vote people in political parties who don’t have the interests of the British at heart have tried as much as possible to sabotage. Tony Blair has called for a second vote on the ‘deal’, Blair sold out the United Kingdom years ago, 2018; he is still willing to do it for his personal benefit.

The Labour Party appears to want to make a rod for its own back by saying that Labour will back entering a customs union with the European Union after Brexit. Jeremy Corbyn is expected to announce a shift in policy that will put clear distance between his party and the Conservatives.

Now is not the time for petty party politics.

It is clear that there will be no General Election in 2019 nor will there be a second Scottish independence referendum anytime soon, and I would say that this term of the current UK parliament will run to its full term. There is no appetite for a new election so soon after we have had two others in such a short space of time. When Theresa May said ‘not now’ that means after 2021, which places the SNP in a tricky position, it is highly expected that the SNP will have no majority even with Scottish Greens support to get a Bill through Holyrood.

No majority really does mean no Bill which means the end of Nicola Sturgeon’s career.  

One reason as I can see for certain people to claim a new election is imminent is to galvanise their members into activism to pound the streets delivering leaflets and to try and garner support, in Scotland, the Labour Party is targeting seats which have low SNP majorities such as Glasgow South West and Glasgow East, I would also expect the party to put resources into Glasgow North East which was won by 242 votes.   

The Labour Party says that it wants to form a “new and strong relationship” with the single market, access to the single market means continual freedom of movement which is something which for some people was a prime reason for voting to leave the EU.

I started this piece by writing, “remaining in a customs union or the single market would be a "deceit", this is actually a quote by Labour MP Frank Field. He alongside Shadow International Trade Secretary Barry Gardiner appears to grasp something which the Labour Party need to take heed of if they ever want to set foot into Number 10. Last August in the opinion pages of The Guardian in an article headlined “Brexit means leaving the single market and the customs union”.

Barry Gardiner wrote:

“Other countries such as Turkey have a separate customs union agreement with the EU. If we were to have a similar agreement, several things would follow: the EU’s 27 members would set the common tariffs and Britain would have no say in how they were set. We would be unable to enter into any separate bilateral free trade agreement. We would be obliged to align our regulatory regime with the EU in all areas covered by the union, without any say in the rules we had to adopt. And we would be bound by the case law of the ECJ, even though we would have no power to bring a case to the court”.

Gardiner added

“As a transitional phase, a customs union agreement might be thought to have some merit. However, as an end point it is deeply unattractive. It would preclude us from making our own independent trade agreements with our five largest export markets outside the EU (the US, China, Japan, Australia and the Gulf states). More important, were, say, the EU to negotiate an agreement with the US that was in the union’s best interests but against our own, our markets would be obliged to accept American produce with no guarantee of reciprocal access for our own goods into the US.”

The key phrase here is ‘as an end point it is deeply unattractive’.

In Scotland, there are problems for Scottish leader Richard Leonard, he is under pressure as ten constituency Labour parties (CLPs) demanded he back remaining in the single market. If he does back the single market, he can forget any chance of being First Minister of Scotland.

In effect Richard Leonard will have sabotaged his own 2021 campaign!

The Scottish Conservatives are meeting in Aberdeen for a Conference as part of their attempt to win the next Holyrood election, they seemed buoyed up by recent success in elections for Westminster and Council, especially in Glasgow where they got 8 seats at the local council.

Richard Leonard might find himself still in the position of leading the third party in the Holyrood Parliament if he goes down the route of backing the single market, Kezia Dugdale backed the single market, history records what happened to her career.

Fucked all roads!

Edinburgh South MP Ian Murray, a Dugdale ally, said party members in his CLP were “making their voices heard”.

He added:

“Given the strength of feeling among ordinary members, it’s vital that we debate this at conference. If we are to leave the EU, the least-worst option for limiting the damage caused by Brexit is to remain as a participant in the single market and customs union.”

Finally, Eurosceptic Labour MP Frank Field said yesterday that remaining in a customs union or the single market  would go against what they said at the election, just as the Lib Dems never recovered for Nick Clegg breaking his word on tuition fees, how will an angry British public view a Labour Party which ‘changes’ its mind?

If you think back to the Blair era and unfettered immigration, the lie sold to the British people was this was done on economic grounds when in fact it was a disastrous social engineering experiment. The ripple of that ‘experiment’ was still present during the Brexit campaign, the same group of people who sabotaged the Labour Party then are still there, they call themselves the ‘progress’ mob or as some other people call them ‘Blairites’.

Yours sincerely

George Laird

The Campaign for Human Rights at Glasgow University