Thursday, September 12, 2019

Copping onto Labour’s Brexit Madness


By Michael Brendan Dougherty
Thursday, September 12, 2019

New prime minister Boris Johnson is re-shaping (possibly shrinking) the Tory party while dedicating it to the mission of accomplishing Brexit very soon. The Liberal Democrats have revived themselves by promising to revoke Article 50 and pretend the whole thing was a giant mistake.

Labour has tried to have it both ways on Brexit for some time now, but the commitments it has made to keep everyone on board make their position ludicrous. And finally, European politicians are realizing that whatever Johnson intends, at least it will end uncertainty. What Labour wants to do is even worse.

Essentially the Labour party’s position is that Theresa May’s Withdrawal Agreement is not good enough, and so they will negotiate a much better one. But their position is also that once the details of their Brexit are hammered out, the people deserve another vote on it. In other words, Labour will delay that bloc from moving on to new business, get them to agree to another deal, one that very well may be rejected. And perhaps a considerable number of Labour MPs would campaign against the deal their party leadership has just negotiated. If the first years of Brexit negotiations were already a farce, what would Brexit 2 Electric Bugaloo and Referendum 2: Remainer’s Revenge be?

According to Bruno Waterfield of The Times, EU officials are realizing they screwed up by playing footsie with the opposition:

One Brussels source close to negotiations said the EU had “made mistakes” with Labour and was now horrified at the party’s convoluted position as political chaos in Westminster raises the prospect of Jeremy Corbyn taking the keys to Downing Street.

“They want us to negotiate a ‘credible’ deal and then they will campaign against it in a referendum? That is mad.

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