Tuesday, January 10, 2017
Corbyn's repositioning leaves the Lib Dems as only GB-wide pro-EU party
The Guardian reports that Jeremy Corbyn will use his first speech of 2017 to claim that Britain can be better off outside the EU and insist that the Labour party has no principled objection to ending the free movement of European workers in the UK:
Setting out his party’s pitch on Brexit in the year that Theresa May will trigger article 50, the Labour leader will also reach for the language of leave campaigners by promising to deliver on a pledge to spend millions of pounds extra on the NHS every week.
He will say Labour’s priority in EU negotiations will remain full access to the European single market, but that his party wants “managed migration” and to repatriate powers from Brussels that would allow governments to intervene in struggling industries such as steel. Sources suggested that the economic demands were about tariff-free access to the single market, rather than membership that they argued did not exist.
This conversion to the rhetoric of Nigel Farage and Boris Johnson will alienate many Labour supporters and place Corbyn's party on the wrong side of the argument over Briatin's economic future, not least because, like many Leave supporters, he is grasping for concessions that will not materialise.
The fact is that we cannot remain members of or have access to the single market without the free movement of labour and capital. How can a country trade freely in goods, or have a level playing field with other members of a single market if it also imposes restrictions on who produces those goods or who finances the production of those goods?
Our European partners grasp this and they have stated it loudly and repeatedly. Why are the likes of Boris Johnson, Theresa May and Jeremy Corbyn not listening?
The Liberal Democrats are now the only home for those who want the UK to remain in the EU and/or retain access to the single market after Brexit. Labour have had their chance to join us in that campaign. Corbyn's latest re-positioning appears to have blown it for them.
Setting out his party’s pitch on Brexit in the year that Theresa May will trigger article 50, the Labour leader will also reach for the language of leave campaigners by promising to deliver on a pledge to spend millions of pounds extra on the NHS every week.
He will say Labour’s priority in EU negotiations will remain full access to the European single market, but that his party wants “managed migration” and to repatriate powers from Brussels that would allow governments to intervene in struggling industries such as steel. Sources suggested that the economic demands were about tariff-free access to the single market, rather than membership that they argued did not exist.
This conversion to the rhetoric of Nigel Farage and Boris Johnson will alienate many Labour supporters and place Corbyn's party on the wrong side of the argument over Briatin's economic future, not least because, like many Leave supporters, he is grasping for concessions that will not materialise.
The fact is that we cannot remain members of or have access to the single market without the free movement of labour and capital. How can a country trade freely in goods, or have a level playing field with other members of a single market if it also imposes restrictions on who produces those goods or who finances the production of those goods?
Our European partners grasp this and they have stated it loudly and repeatedly. Why are the likes of Boris Johnson, Theresa May and Jeremy Corbyn not listening?
The Liberal Democrats are now the only home for those who want the UK to remain in the EU and/or retain access to the single market after Brexit. Labour have had their chance to join us in that campaign. Corbyn's latest re-positioning appears to have blown it for them.
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