Labour is now expected to abstain on the Internal Market Bill. No change there.
For more than 50 years, if Europe has been the issue, then you have never known what you were voting for if you voted Labour. The same is true today. From Harold Wilson to Keir Starmer, every Leader has felt compelled and constrained by the requirements of party management.
Free votes for Ministers in the 1970s. Shadow Cabinet members whose Election Addresses professed them in favour of the Common Market contrary to manifesto policy in 1983. The three-line whip to abstain on Maastricht. The um-ing and ah-ing of the Blair Government over the euro. And so on, and on, and on, and on, and on.
This is only the latest. Nor will it be the last.
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