Making Brexit Work?

At every General Election of the last 25 years, Tony Blair has either been or endorsed the Leader of the party that has ended up with the largest number of seats, such that that Leader has either become or remained Prime Minister. Blair recently told his fan club that Brexit could not be reversed "in at least a generation", and that was quite a thing to say on the part of a man of 69.

Lo and behold, then, Keir Starmer duly announced that he no longer wished to rejoin the European Union, or the Single Market, or the Customs Union. Labour's position is now as it was in black and white in the 2017 manifesto, which garnered 40 per cent of the vote and deprived the Conservatives of their overall majority.

Had Starmer not unilaterally changed that policy in his speech to the 2018 Party Conference, when the look on Dennis Skinner's face made it clear that he knew that he was therefore going to lose his seat, then there would never have been a General Election in 2019, when a Boris Johnson newly installed in Downing Street seized his opportunity. The Election would have been last month or the month before, five years after the one in 2017, and it would have resulted in another hung Parliament, quite possibly with Labour as the largest party.

Not that Jeremy Corbyn would then have become Prime Minister. That would never have happened even if he had led Labour to an overall majority. During Election Night, the Parliamentary Labour Party would have made it clear that, while a Labour Leader might have been able to command such a majority, this Labour Leader would not have been. The Queen would then have been unable to have appointed him.

That is no small part of why I make no apology for having contested North West Durham at the last General Election. It is no disrespect to Laura Pidcock to say that there was never, ever going to be a Government with her in it. Nor would a party that proceeded to elect Starmer as Leader have elected her instead.

If Labour had won, then Starmer would have become Prime Minister the next day, Corbyn would have been without the Whip just as he is now, and there would have been no Brexit, still less the Hard Brexit in which Starmer now professes to believe. As, therefore, must the Labour candidate at North West Durham next time. In the vanishingly unlikely event that any such person were ever to materialise.