Labour, Blair and Brexit
Tony Blair turned top the heat on Brexit with his claim that Labour would annihilate the Tories with a more positive stance.
The timing is perfect with the publication of a new poll which shows that 87% of Labour Party members support continued membership of the EU Single Market - while 78% of party members support a second referendum on the final Brexit terms.
The worm is definitely turning, if you ask me.
Tony Blair: Labour would 'annihilate' Tories with different Brexit stance
The former prime minister makes a rare intervention, urging the party to shift to a "much more powerful political position".
Blair: Labour must make the Tories own Brexit
By Robert Nisbet - Sky News
Jeremy Corbyn's Labour would "annihilate" the Conservatives at the next election if it changed its position on Brexit, Tony Blair has predicted.
The former prime minister, who backed the Remain campaign in the EU referendum, told Sky News his party should harden its opposition to any deal which would make Britain poorer, reaping a political windfall.
He said: "I can see a situation where the Labour Party would annihilate the Tories if it took the high ground - because it would go right back into the fundamental division within the (Conservative) Party over the future of the country.
"It would be a much more powerful political position," he argued in an interview to publicise a report by his think-tank, the Institute for Global Change.
Image:Jeremy Corbyn was criticised for his PMQs performance
He warned that Mr Corbyn would face the "very same political issues" faced by Theresa May if he entered Downing Street without altering Labour's stance.
"I understand the politics of this which is to say a substantial number of Labour voters voted leave so we've just got to go ahead," he said.
"But it's far better to go onto the high ground and give some leadership to our people: make their Brexit a Tory Brexit and deal with people's anxieties - whether immigration or jobs or inequality or living standards - by policies which address those questions."
Image:Mr Blair said Labour could 'annihalate' the Tories
He also criticised Mr Corbyn's performance in the Commons on the subject.
"We very rarely raise the topic of Brexit in Prime Minister's Questions - but it's the dominant issue of the day. So why do we do that? It's because we don't want to get into a fight on Brexit."
And Mr Blair took aim at claims in a new book by US columnist Michael Wolff, Fire and Fury: Inside the Trump White House.
Among the allegations it made were that Mr Blair wanted a job as Middle East adviser to President Donald Trump and that he warned his White House team that they were being spied on by British intelligence.
He also criticised Mr Corbyn's performance in the Commons on the subject.
"We very rarely raise the topic of Brexit in Prime Minister's Questions - but it's the dominant issue of the day. So why do we do that? It's because we don't want to get into a fight on Brexit."
And Mr Blair took aim at claims in a new book by US columnist Michael Wolff, Fire and Fury: Inside the Trump White House.
Among the allegations it made were that Mr Blair wanted a job as Middle East adviser to President Donald Trump and that he warned his White House team that they were being spied on by British intelligence.
Image:Mr Blair denied hoping for a job with Mr Trump
"It's just incredible the way the world works," Mr Blair said when pressed on the claims.
"I mean this is a story written in this book - by someone who's never spoken to me by the way - which is a complete fabrication.
"The notion that the British intelligence services would start spying on an American Presidential candidate - it is so ludicrous that anyone who knows anything about these (things) would know it's fatuous.
"I wasn't angling for a job. I have no desire for a job with the American administration."
As the Pound continues to fall like a stone against the Euro, sucking in higher inflation, the claims from the Leave camp about 'taking back control' seem comical and absurd, although not in the least funny.
As I've said before on the blog site, no one voted for this nonsense and if you ask me what we really need is a cross party campaign for the final Brexit deal to be put to a 'free vote' of MPs at Westminster.
Followed by a second referendum once people can fully appreciate the costs and benefits of leaving the European Union (EU).
One of Corbyn's key supporters in Labour's shadow cabinet (Barry Gardiner) also went out of his way this week to insist that a Labour would not support continued membership of the Customs Union.
What a complete mess.
The Labour leader and the Shadow International Trade Secretary have set out completely different positions over the customs union
But Mr Corbyn has already ruled out continued membership of the single market. He said at the weekend that leaving the single market and leaving the EU were "inextricably linked", even though Liechtenstein and Norway remain a member of the single market but not the EU.
On Sunday night Mr Gardiner said remainining in the customs union would create an “asymmetrical relationship” between the UK and any nations the EU went on to strike trade agreements with, as the UK's interests in those deals would not be considered.
“The EU could do a deal with another country, let’s say America, which we would be bound by in the UK,” he explained.
“We would have to accept the liberalisation of our markets, we would have to accept their goods coming into our markets on the terms agreed by Europe, which could be prejudicial to us.
BBC UK Politics
Labour has not ruled out continued membership of the EU single market, John McDonnell has said, as he sought to play down divisions over Brexit.
Everyone wanted tariff-free access to EU markets, the shadow chancellor said.
But there was a debate on-going within the Labour Party about whether the best option was continued membership or a separate agreement, he added.
Jeremy Corbyn has suggested the single market is "inextricably linked" to EU membership and the UK cannot remain.
Speaking on Sunday, the Labour leader said leaving the EU meant leaving the EU's internal market - whose members must abide by rules on the free movement of goods, capital, services, and labour.
Jones calls on May to rethink Brexit
Cabinet 'united' over EU transition deal
Brexit: All you need to know
The party's international trade spokesman, Barry Gardiner, has gone further, saying the UK should also rule out remaining in the customs union beyond any transitional period, claiming that failing to do so would make the UK a "vassal state" unable to negotiate sovereign trade deals.
However, many Labour MPs disagree with both positions - arguing that it is in the UK's economic interests to remain in both. They point out there are non-EU members, like Norway, which have full access to the single market and countries such as Turkey which belong to the customs union.
And Welsh first minister Carwyn Jones is arguing Labour should be pushing for the UK to remain in the single market - even though it might mean not being able to impose any controls on immigration from the EU.
Mr McDonnell insisted Labour had a "straightforward" position on the type of access the UK needed to its largest market after it leaves the EU in March 2019.
"Our objective is tariff-free access to the market," he said. "That has been our objective since immediately after the referendum.
"The structures - whether we are in or out - are a secondary matter.
"We are not ruling anything out but what we are saying is that we are the fifth largest economy in the world and we have a special status in both our relationship with the EU and the rest of the globe and we feel we can get a deal that achieves tariff-free access."
'Special status'
Pressed on whether he and Mr Corbyn disagreed on the matter, he said: "I think we are all on the same page with regard to our objectives... there is a debate around whether it is full membership or a new relationship or a separate agreement.
"What we are saying is keep our eye on what is the most important objective, tariff-free access. We can achieve that."
The BBC's assistant political editor Norman Smith said there was a "deep internal divide" within the party and the shadow chancellor was seeking to "soften" the party's stance following a backlash by pro-EU MPs and trade unionists over Mr Corbyn and Mr Gardiner's remarks
Amid signs of growing internal strains over Brexit, the former shadow health secretary Heidi Alexander said she had never felt "more concerned" about her party's position.
"My colleague Barry Gardiner's contribution to the Brexit debate, in which he argues for the UK to come out of the single market and customs union to facilitate Brexit was, for me, depressing and disingenuous in equal measure," she wrote in the Guardian.
She accused her colleague of using arguments on sovereignty, immigration and the legal jurisdiction that "could have come straight out of Tory Central Office", Instead, she said Labour must focus on the damage posed to those on low and middle incomes of a so-called hard Brexit.
The government has said the UK will leave the single market and customs union but could maintain some existing arrangements for an interim period to help British business adjust.
He's wrong of course, as this diagram shows, and he is also out of step with the majority of Labour supporters, especially the younger members who have most to lose and don't share the hang ups of Corbyn's leftist inner circle.
False Prospectus (24/07/17)
The man's a complete fool if you ask me, because he cited no evidence in support of his claim and the allegation is self-evidently untrue in areas such as the NHS and local government.
JEREMY CORBYN. PHOTO: GETTY
BY HELEN LEWIS - THE STAGGERS
The Labour leader has told Andrew Marr that his party wants to leave the single market.
Mass immigration from the European Union has been used to "destroy" the conditions of British workers, Jeremy Corbyn said today.
The Labour leader was pressed on his party's attitude to immigration on the Andrew Marr programme. He reiterated his belief that Britain should leave the Single Market, claiming that "the single market is dependent on membership of the EU . . . the two things are inextricably linked."
Corbyn said that Labour would argue for "tarriff-free trade access" instead. However, other countries which enjoy this kind of deal, such as Norway, do so by accepting the "four freedoms" of the single market, which include freedom of movement for people. Labour MP Chuka Umunna has led a parliamentary attempt to keep Britain in the single market, arguing that 66 per cent of Labour members want to stay. The SNP's Nicola Sturgeon said that "Labour's failure to stand up for common sense on single market will make them as culpable as Tories for Brexit disaster".
Tony Blair, the former Labour leader, published an interesting article the other day about the changing face of Brexit in which he argued that the 2017 general election result provides an opportunity for fundamentally reappraising the pros and cons of leaving the European Union (EU).
http://institute.global/news/brexit-and-centre
BREXIT AND THE CENTRE
By Tony Blair
This was on any basis an extraordinary election, unique in recent British political experience and with major political consequence.
The country is deeply divided: between young and old; metropolitan and outside the cities; better off and worse off.
And the country is suffering from the state of its politics. This time last year we were the fastest growing economy in the G7. We are now the slowest. The international investment community is negative on us. The savings rate is at its lowest in 50 years. Incomes are stagnating. The international reputation of Britain is rapidly losing altitude. There is a daily drip of worrying news on Brexit. The Grenfell Tower tragedy sums up for many the sorry condition of our social cohesion.
There is a slightly anarchic feel to our politics intensified by the realisation that the Government is weak and drifting.
There is more followership than leadership.
We feel like a country which has lost its footing and is stumbling; but seemingly with no choice but to stagger on.
This is where everything has changed and nothing has changed.
The election result should enable a fundamental re-appraisal of Brexit. Large numbers of people voted to stop a Hard Brexit and rejected explicitly the mandate Theresa May was demanding.
Instead, both main parties remain wedded to leaving the Single Market.
Now we argue over long transitional periods, and complicated methods of re-creating new regulatory mechanisms with Europe, which essentially mean we will have to keep close to European regulation, when all such things do, is re-emphasise the inherent dangers of the whole venture.
I agree that if the will of the British people remains as it was last June, then Brexit will happen.
But, to state what in a less surreal world would be blindingly obvious, it is possible, that, as we know more about what Brexit means, our ‘will’ changes.
Our leaders should at least lead a proper debate about the options before us.
They should become the nation’s educators, engaging us, explaining to us, laying out every alternative and what it means.
Rational consideration of the options would sensibly include the option of negotiating for Britain to stay within a Europe itself prepared to reform and meet us half way.
The Macron victory changes the political dynamics of Europe. The members of the Euro zone will integrate economic decision-making. Inevitably, therefore, Europe will comprise an inner and outer circle. Reform is now on Europe’s agenda. The European leaders, certainly from my discussions, are willing to consider changes to accommodate Britain, including around freedom of movement.
Yet this option is excluded.
In the week before the election, my Institute along with Luntz Global Partners conducted a poll in France, Germany and the UK around attitudes to Europe, Brexit and politics.
The British people’s attitude to Europe is ambivalent.
They do think ‘Brexit means Brexit’ and for now there is no groundswell for a second referendum.
But, they want a strong relationship with Europe. A majority oppose Hard Brexit. The opposition to free movement of people, once you break it down, is much more nuanced. The French and Germans share some of the British worries, notably around immigration, and would compromise on freedom of movement.
There is no evidence that Britain wants to pay a high economic price for Brexit.
A majority would probably coalesce around a ‘Soft Brexit’.
However, the problem is that the difference between a Hard and a Soft Brexit has a very simple starting point: membership of the Single Market and Customs Union. If we stay within those rules of trade, where over 50 % of our exports go, then the economic damage of Brexit will be limited.
But, we will have to abide by the rules.
The political difficulties of this are evident. It would lead in short order to a scratching of the British collective head and feeling of ‘well, in that case, what's the point of leaving?’
On the other hand, if we do leave the Single Market and Customs Union, then it is also clear that the economic damage is potentially large. No one who has seriously examined these issues believes that a 3rd country FTA is remotely a substitute for membership of the Single Market.
A ‘Jobs First’ Brexit outside the Single Market is a contradiction in terms.
So when people blithely say ‘we will get roughly the same terms as we do now with the Single Market’, I literally know no one in the European system who believes this.
We have over-estimated, as ever, the weakness of Europe. Growth rates are recovering. Politics is stabilising. Yes many clouds remain – from Italian and Spanish banks to popular anger at cuts, low pay and immigration concerns. Europe is not out of the woods. But it thinks it sees a path out of those woods and our poll shows that French and Germans see Europe as a guide not an obstacle.
The 27 will basically stick together in defending the rules of the Single Market.
But we are all learning, as we proceed, the damage Brexit will do.
Europe knows it will be poorer and less powerful without us.
We know our currency is down around 12%; already jobs are going; there is not £350m a week more for the NHS; and we actually need most of the migrants who come to work in the UK.
On any basis, leaving is complex and will take years.
Brexit is the biggest political decision since the Second World War.
Given what is at stake, and what, daily, we are discovering about the costs of Brexit, how can it be right deliberately to take off the table the option of compromise between Britain and Europe so that Britain stays within a reformed Europe?
We are doing so because the Tories fear that if Brexit in some form does not happen, they will re-open the fissure within their Party.
For three decades this internal Conservative battle has wreaked havoc with the politics of the country rather as Empire Tariff debates did in the late 19th and early 20th C.
Meanwhile the true challenges of the country are unaddressed.
The legislative programme is dominated by Brexit to the virtual exclusion of anything else.
The Government may ask for ‘new ideas’ from all sides of politics but the reality is it has no bandwidth seriously to do anything other than Brexit.
It is not too late for the country to grip its own destiny, change the terms of the Brexit debate and turn its attention to the true challenges the nation faces.
This is where what happens to the Labour Party matters so much.
The ambiguity of Labour’s position on Europe may have helped us access both Remain and Leave votes, though I am dubious.
However, it can't last. If Labour continues to be for leaving the Single Market, and the signs are that it will, then we are essentially for the same policy as the Government.
This will become apparent to those who voted Remain. But more than that, it puts us in the same damaging position for the economy as the Tories; and in circumstances where we are also trying to end austerity through spending programmes which, to be clear, are larger than any Labour Party has ever proposed.
I agree Labour had a remarkable result which I did not foresee. I pay tribute to Jeremy Corbyn’s temperament in the campaign, to the campaign’s mobilisation of younger voters and to the enthusiasm it generated.
His supporters shouldn't exaggerate it; but his critics including me shouldn't under-state it. He tapped into something real and powerful, as Bernie Sanders has in the USA and left groups have done all over Europe.
There is a genuine and widespread desire for change and for the politics of social justice.
This should alter the context in which we debate politics; and help influence the policy solutions.
But it doesn't alter the judgement about the risks of an unchanged Corbyn programme, if he became Prime Minister and tried to implement it at the same time as Brexit.
If a right wing populist punch in the form of Brexit was followed by a left wing populist punch in the form of unreconstructed hard left economics, Britain would hit the canvas, flat on our back and be out for a long count.
The conventional wisdom is that the centre ground in British politics is now marginalised.
It is true that the country didn't vote for centrist politics on June 8; but neither was it on offer.
The space for the centre may seem smaller; but the need for it is ever bigger.
The poll shows that a majority in all three countries still identify most with the centre of politics; and that the policies people want, are those which produce real change but from basically a centrist position.
Both Parties now face a fundamental choice of direction. The Tories could go back to the direction of David Cameron in the style of Ruth Davidson. Or they could stick with the politics of the last year, defined by Brexit and immigration.
Labour’s leadership could champion a position on Europe radically distinct from the Tories and reach out to those in the PLP with experience of Government to craft a programme of credibility as well as change.
Or they could dismiss the need for compromise and double down in their efforts to make their takeover of the Labour Party complete.
The Labour Party should be cautious in thinking ‘one more heave’ will deliver victory next time.
The Corbyn campaign was a positive factor in the election result; but the determining factor was the Tory campaign.
In all the elections since 1979, the result at the end was more or less what I expected at the beginning.
Not this time. There is no doubt in my mind that at the beginning of the campaign the public were indeed about to give the Tories a landslide. After all, we had just had a really poor local election result, a normally reliable predictor.
What happened is a perfect illustration of why the Greeks were right that hubris is always followed by nemesis.
Their error was less in calling the election than in the conduct of it.
The winning strategy was the one they started with: Theresa May is a Leader above party, asking for a strong negotiating hand to get the best Brexit deal.
But instead of keeping to it, they shattered it.
Brexit policy turned into Hard Brexit or ‘No Deal’ Brexit, rather than the ‘best deal for Britain’. The manifesto was not above party but absolutely of the Tory Party: austerity, typical tough Tory policy on social care and school meals, plus fox hunting.
The public recoiled.
The 16m who voted Remain realised they had to vote to defeat the Brexit mandate she was seeking. Anyone who cared about the public realm, and wished for an end to or an amelioration of austerity, understood this was their only opportunity to register that wish.
Not foreseeable; but on reflection completely explicable.
The Labour electoral performance was unexpected. But that is exactly why we have to be careful in interpreting it. Victories in Kensington and Canterbury were amazing. But losses in Middlesbrough and Stoke were equally alarming.
The Corbyn enthusiasm, especially amongst the young, is real, but I would hesitate before saying that all those who voted Labour voted to make him Prime Minister; or that they supported the body of the programme rather than its tone.
I think they thought that the likelihood was that the Tories would be the Government, but were determined to neuter the mandate.
This is why you could have – another unique dimension to the election – candidates standing for Labour overtly distancing from Jeremy Corbyn and yet still being elected, some with big majorities.
The common refrain amongst some Labour MPs is the policies were popular and if we retain them and unite we will win next time.
We should beware our own form of hubris.
The Tories are not going to run another campaign like that one.
Next time, Labour’s economic programme will come under vastly greater scrutiny. No one is going to believe that there is not a real possibility of Jeremy Corbyn as Prime Minister. The campaign mishaps which happened every time the spending figures were put under the spotlight won't pass so easily.
Understandably, some Labour MPs who, only weeks ago, thought their best hope of salvation rested on disassociation from the Leader, now feel disoriented.
But policies which were wrong in May didn't suddenly become right in June.
Many in this election voted with profound reluctance. There were an unusual number of voters making up their mind very late.
Ultimately neither Party won a majority.
It is true that politics has changed dramatically from 10 years ago.
Our poll shows people want change and by large numbers and in all three countries. Years of austerity and an acute sense of an elite separated from the rest has led to a belief that the promise of generational progress has ended. This generation believes it has done better than the last. But it does not believe the next generation will do better than them.
That is the market of anxiety in which the populists peddle quack solutions.
But the poll also shows that support for the centre stays strong. People will default to populism when a radical centre is not on offer; where it is, they will vote it in, as Macron has shown.
I am not advocating a new Party. Quite apart from the desirability of such a thing, our political system puts formidable barriers in its path.
In any event, as a member of the Labour Party of over 40 years standing, I want the Labour Party to capture this ground.
But there are millions of politically homeless in Britain. They are not going to wander the by-ways of politics, bedding down uncomfortably, forever, not with their country in the dire shape it is in.
The challenge for the centre is to be the place of changing the status quo not managing it.
If it does, it still beats everything else.
What the progressive centre lacks is a radical policy agenda. This is the most immediate task and the one to which my new Institute is devoted.
One of the most dispiriting aspects of the election campaign was the absence of serious debate about the real challenges Britain faces.
AI, automation and Big Data will usher in a new workplace revolution. The NHS, our school and skills system, ‘early years’ education, welfare and retirement need to be re-designed fundamentally to take account of technology, scientific development, and changing demographics and lifestyle.
Communities and people left behind by globalisation need to be helped by specific measures which connect them to the mainstream economy.
The infrastructure of Britain has to be built anew to link up the regions of the country and take advantage of our assets – geography, history, language and a culture which, despite everything, the world still admires.
We need an ambitious affordable housing programme.
Austerity should end; but its’ ending should place an even greater responsibility on Government to seek solutions which change systems and not just pump money into them.
Britain has to escape the cul de sac of backward-looking pessimism with a programme of national renaissance, drawing on the best and most creative minds, to produce the new thinking which can shape our future; and can re-kindle optimism.
This is why Brexit matters so much. It is not merely damaging in itself; it is a massive distraction. Whilst other countries are moving down the fast lane of progress, we are stuck on the hard shoulder of nostalgia.
In this time of accelerating change, we are offered two different types of conservativism, one of the right and one of the left.
The election was fought like one from the 1980s, but with two competing visions of the 1960s.
Neither answers the call of the future.
Politics today are volatile and unpredictable. In these times, best hold to what you believe.
The centre may appear marginalised; but in the hearts and minds of many, it simply needs to be renewed.
Brexit makes this renewal urgent.
"It's just incredible the way the world works," Mr Blair said when pressed on the claims.
"I mean this is a story written in this book - by someone who's never spoken to me by the way - which is a complete fabrication.
"The notion that the British intelligence services would start spying on an American Presidential candidate - it is so ludicrous that anyone who knows anything about these (things) would know it's fatuous.
"I wasn't angling for a job. I have no desire for a job with the American administration."
Labour Brexit (30/08/17)
Some wag on Twitter posted this crude but very effective drawing to illustrate the policy difference between Labour and Conservatives over Brexit.
As the Pound continues to fall like a stone against the Euro, sucking in higher inflation, the claims from the Leave camp about 'taking back control' seem comical and absurd, although not in the least funny.
As I've said before on the blog site, no one voted for this nonsense and if you ask me what we really need is a cross party campaign for the final Brexit deal to be put to a 'free vote' of MPs at Westminster.
Followed by a second referendum once people can fully appreciate the costs and benefits of leaving the European Union (EU).
Labour on Brexit (27/07/17)
Labour policy on Brexit is turning into something of a pantomime as Jeremy Corbyn says 'all options are on the table' only days after ruling out continued membership of the Single Market.
One of Corbyn's key supporters in Labour's shadow cabinet (Barry Gardiner) also went out of his way this week to insist that a Labour would not support continued membership of the Customs Union.
In reality, the Conservative Government is all over the place on Brexit and the same goes for the official Labour opposition.
What a complete mess.
Jeremy Corbyn upbraids Barry Gardiner for contradicting Labour customs union position
The Labour leader and the Shadow International Trade Secretary have set out completely different positions over the customs union
By Tom Peck - The Independent
The Labour leader's spokesperson said remaining in the customs union was still 'on the table' Reuters
Jeremy Corbyn has disagreed with his own Shadow International Trade Secretary, and said that the Labour party would keep membership of the customs union after Brexit "on the table."
Mr Gardiner had said in a newspaper article and repeated his comments in various television interviews, that remaining in the customs union after leaving th EU would render Britain a "vassal state" as it would be subject to rules it had no power to set or amend.
A spokesperson for Mr Corbyn said it was wrong to "sweep options off the table."
Jeremy Corbyn has disagreed with his own Shadow International Trade Secretary, and said that the Labour party would keep membership of the customs union after Brexit "on the table."
Mr Gardiner had said in a newspaper article and repeated his comments in various television interviews, that remaining in the customs union after leaving th EU would render Britain a "vassal state" as it would be subject to rules it had no power to set or amend.
A spokesperson for Mr Corbyn said it was wrong to "sweep options off the table."
But Mr Corbyn has already ruled out continued membership of the single market. He said at the weekend that leaving the single market and leaving the EU were "inextricably linked", even though Liechtenstein and Norway remain a member of the single market but not the EU.
On Sunday night Mr Gardiner said remainining in the customs union would create an “asymmetrical relationship” between the UK and any nations the EU went on to strike trade agreements with, as the UK's interests in those deals would not be considered.
“The EU could do a deal with another country, let’s say America, which we would be bound by in the UK,” he explained.
“We would have to accept the liberalisation of our markets, we would have to accept their goods coming into our markets on the terms agreed by Europe, which could be prejudicial to us.
John McDonnell not ruling out single market membership
BBC UK Politics
Labour has not ruled out continued membership of the EU single market, John McDonnell has said, as he sought to play down divisions over Brexit.
Everyone wanted tariff-free access to EU markets, the shadow chancellor said.
But there was a debate on-going within the Labour Party about whether the best option was continued membership or a separate agreement, he added.
Jeremy Corbyn has suggested the single market is "inextricably linked" to EU membership and the UK cannot remain.
Speaking on Sunday, the Labour leader said leaving the EU meant leaving the EU's internal market - whose members must abide by rules on the free movement of goods, capital, services, and labour.
Jones calls on May to rethink Brexit
Cabinet 'united' over EU transition deal
Brexit: All you need to know
The party's international trade spokesman, Barry Gardiner, has gone further, saying the UK should also rule out remaining in the customs union beyond any transitional period, claiming that failing to do so would make the UK a "vassal state" unable to negotiate sovereign trade deals.
However, many Labour MPs disagree with both positions - arguing that it is in the UK's economic interests to remain in both. They point out there are non-EU members, like Norway, which have full access to the single market and countries such as Turkey which belong to the customs union.
And Welsh first minister Carwyn Jones is arguing Labour should be pushing for the UK to remain in the single market - even though it might mean not being able to impose any controls on immigration from the EU.
Mr McDonnell insisted Labour had a "straightforward" position on the type of access the UK needed to its largest market after it leaves the EU in March 2019.
"Our objective is tariff-free access to the market," he said. "That has been our objective since immediately after the referendum.
"The structures - whether we are in or out - are a secondary matter.
"We are not ruling anything out but what we are saying is that we are the fifth largest economy in the world and we have a special status in both our relationship with the EU and the rest of the globe and we feel we can get a deal that achieves tariff-free access."
'Special status'
Pressed on whether he and Mr Corbyn disagreed on the matter, he said: "I think we are all on the same page with regard to our objectives... there is a debate around whether it is full membership or a new relationship or a separate agreement.
"What we are saying is keep our eye on what is the most important objective, tariff-free access. We can achieve that."
The BBC's assistant political editor Norman Smith said there was a "deep internal divide" within the party and the shadow chancellor was seeking to "soften" the party's stance following a backlash by pro-EU MPs and trade unionists over Mr Corbyn and Mr Gardiner's remarks
Amid signs of growing internal strains over Brexit, the former shadow health secretary Heidi Alexander said she had never felt "more concerned" about her party's position.
"My colleague Barry Gardiner's contribution to the Brexit debate, in which he argues for the UK to come out of the single market and customs union to facilitate Brexit was, for me, depressing and disingenuous in equal measure," she wrote in the Guardian.
She accused her colleague of using arguments on sovereignty, immigration and the legal jurisdiction that "could have come straight out of Tory Central Office", Instead, she said Labour must focus on the damage posed to those on low and middle incomes of a so-called hard Brexit.
The government has said the UK will leave the single market and customs union but could maintain some existing arrangements for an interim period to help British business adjust.
Corbyn's Out of Step (25/07/17)
Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn keeps saying that the UK cannot leave the European Union and at the same time stay within the Single Market.
He's wrong of course, as this diagram shows, and he is also out of step with the majority of Labour supporters, especially the younger members who have most to lose and don't share the hang ups of Corbyn's leftist inner circle.
False Prospectus (24/07/17)
The New Statesman magazine reports on Jeremy Corbyn's latest bizarre claim that "wholesale" EU immigration destroyed conditions for British workers.
The man's a complete fool if you ask me, because he cited no evidence in support of his claim and the allegation is self-evidently untrue in areas such as the NHS and local government.
On this evidence there's nothing much to choose between Labour and the Tories - the march towards Brexit continues apace, but is based on a false prospectus.
Jeremy Corbyn: "wholesale" EU immigration has destroyed conditions for British workers
JEREMY CORBYN. PHOTO: GETTY
BY HELEN LEWIS - THE STAGGERS
The Labour leader has told Andrew Marr that his party wants to leave the single market.
Mass immigration from the European Union has been used to "destroy" the conditions of British workers, Jeremy Corbyn said today.
The Labour leader was pressed on his party's attitude to immigration on the Andrew Marr programme. He reiterated his belief that Britain should leave the Single Market, claiming that "the single market is dependent on membership of the EU . . . the two things are inextricably linked."
Corbyn said that Labour would argue for "tarriff-free trade access" instead. However, other countries which enjoy this kind of deal, such as Norway, do so by accepting the "four freedoms" of the single market, which include freedom of movement for people. Labour MP Chuka Umunna has led a parliamentary attempt to keep Britain in the single market, arguing that 66 per cent of Labour members want to stay. The SNP's Nicola Sturgeon said that "Labour's failure to stand up for common sense on single market will make them as culpable as Tories for Brexit disaster".
Leadership vs Followership (19/07/17)
Tony Blair, the former Labour leader, published an interesting article the other day about the changing face of Brexit in which he argued that the 2017 general election result provides an opportunity for fundamentally reappraising the pros and cons of leaving the European Union (EU).
http://institute.global/news/brexit-and-centre
BREXIT AND THE CENTRE
By Tony Blair
This was on any basis an extraordinary election, unique in recent British political experience and with major political consequence.
The country is deeply divided: between young and old; metropolitan and outside the cities; better off and worse off.
And the country is suffering from the state of its politics. This time last year we were the fastest growing economy in the G7. We are now the slowest. The international investment community is negative on us. The savings rate is at its lowest in 50 years. Incomes are stagnating. The international reputation of Britain is rapidly losing altitude. There is a daily drip of worrying news on Brexit. The Grenfell Tower tragedy sums up for many the sorry condition of our social cohesion.
There is a slightly anarchic feel to our politics intensified by the realisation that the Government is weak and drifting.
There is more followership than leadership.
We feel like a country which has lost its footing and is stumbling; but seemingly with no choice but to stagger on.
This is where everything has changed and nothing has changed.
The election result should enable a fundamental re-appraisal of Brexit. Large numbers of people voted to stop a Hard Brexit and rejected explicitly the mandate Theresa May was demanding.
Instead, both main parties remain wedded to leaving the Single Market.
Now we argue over long transitional periods, and complicated methods of re-creating new regulatory mechanisms with Europe, which essentially mean we will have to keep close to European regulation, when all such things do, is re-emphasise the inherent dangers of the whole venture.
I agree that if the will of the British people remains as it was last June, then Brexit will happen.
But, to state what in a less surreal world would be blindingly obvious, it is possible, that, as we know more about what Brexit means, our ‘will’ changes.
Our leaders should at least lead a proper debate about the options before us.
They should become the nation’s educators, engaging us, explaining to us, laying out every alternative and what it means.
Rational consideration of the options would sensibly include the option of negotiating for Britain to stay within a Europe itself prepared to reform and meet us half way.
The Macron victory changes the political dynamics of Europe. The members of the Euro zone will integrate economic decision-making. Inevitably, therefore, Europe will comprise an inner and outer circle. Reform is now on Europe’s agenda. The European leaders, certainly from my discussions, are willing to consider changes to accommodate Britain, including around freedom of movement.
Yet this option is excluded.
In the week before the election, my Institute along with Luntz Global Partners conducted a poll in France, Germany and the UK around attitudes to Europe, Brexit and politics.
The British people’s attitude to Europe is ambivalent.
They do think ‘Brexit means Brexit’ and for now there is no groundswell for a second referendum.
But, they want a strong relationship with Europe. A majority oppose Hard Brexit. The opposition to free movement of people, once you break it down, is much more nuanced. The French and Germans share some of the British worries, notably around immigration, and would compromise on freedom of movement.
There is no evidence that Britain wants to pay a high economic price for Brexit.
A majority would probably coalesce around a ‘Soft Brexit’.
However, the problem is that the difference between a Hard and a Soft Brexit has a very simple starting point: membership of the Single Market and Customs Union. If we stay within those rules of trade, where over 50 % of our exports go, then the economic damage of Brexit will be limited.
But, we will have to abide by the rules.
The political difficulties of this are evident. It would lead in short order to a scratching of the British collective head and feeling of ‘well, in that case, what's the point of leaving?’
On the other hand, if we do leave the Single Market and Customs Union, then it is also clear that the economic damage is potentially large. No one who has seriously examined these issues believes that a 3rd country FTA is remotely a substitute for membership of the Single Market.
A ‘Jobs First’ Brexit outside the Single Market is a contradiction in terms.
So when people blithely say ‘we will get roughly the same terms as we do now with the Single Market’, I literally know no one in the European system who believes this.
We have over-estimated, as ever, the weakness of Europe. Growth rates are recovering. Politics is stabilising. Yes many clouds remain – from Italian and Spanish banks to popular anger at cuts, low pay and immigration concerns. Europe is not out of the woods. But it thinks it sees a path out of those woods and our poll shows that French and Germans see Europe as a guide not an obstacle.
The 27 will basically stick together in defending the rules of the Single Market.
But we are all learning, as we proceed, the damage Brexit will do.
Europe knows it will be poorer and less powerful without us.
We know our currency is down around 12%; already jobs are going; there is not £350m a week more for the NHS; and we actually need most of the migrants who come to work in the UK.
On any basis, leaving is complex and will take years.
Brexit is the biggest political decision since the Second World War.
Given what is at stake, and what, daily, we are discovering about the costs of Brexit, how can it be right deliberately to take off the table the option of compromise between Britain and Europe so that Britain stays within a reformed Europe?
We are doing so because the Tories fear that if Brexit in some form does not happen, they will re-open the fissure within their Party.
For three decades this internal Conservative battle has wreaked havoc with the politics of the country rather as Empire Tariff debates did in the late 19th and early 20th C.
Meanwhile the true challenges of the country are unaddressed.
The legislative programme is dominated by Brexit to the virtual exclusion of anything else.
The Government may ask for ‘new ideas’ from all sides of politics but the reality is it has no bandwidth seriously to do anything other than Brexit.
It is not too late for the country to grip its own destiny, change the terms of the Brexit debate and turn its attention to the true challenges the nation faces.
This is where what happens to the Labour Party matters so much.
The ambiguity of Labour’s position on Europe may have helped us access both Remain and Leave votes, though I am dubious.
However, it can't last. If Labour continues to be for leaving the Single Market, and the signs are that it will, then we are essentially for the same policy as the Government.
This will become apparent to those who voted Remain. But more than that, it puts us in the same damaging position for the economy as the Tories; and in circumstances where we are also trying to end austerity through spending programmes which, to be clear, are larger than any Labour Party has ever proposed.
I agree Labour had a remarkable result which I did not foresee. I pay tribute to Jeremy Corbyn’s temperament in the campaign, to the campaign’s mobilisation of younger voters and to the enthusiasm it generated.
His supporters shouldn't exaggerate it; but his critics including me shouldn't under-state it. He tapped into something real and powerful, as Bernie Sanders has in the USA and left groups have done all over Europe.
There is a genuine and widespread desire for change and for the politics of social justice.
This should alter the context in which we debate politics; and help influence the policy solutions.
But it doesn't alter the judgement about the risks of an unchanged Corbyn programme, if he became Prime Minister and tried to implement it at the same time as Brexit.
If a right wing populist punch in the form of Brexit was followed by a left wing populist punch in the form of unreconstructed hard left economics, Britain would hit the canvas, flat on our back and be out for a long count.
The conventional wisdom is that the centre ground in British politics is now marginalised.
It is true that the country didn't vote for centrist politics on June 8; but neither was it on offer.
The space for the centre may seem smaller; but the need for it is ever bigger.
The poll shows that a majority in all three countries still identify most with the centre of politics; and that the policies people want, are those which produce real change but from basically a centrist position.
Both Parties now face a fundamental choice of direction. The Tories could go back to the direction of David Cameron in the style of Ruth Davidson. Or they could stick with the politics of the last year, defined by Brexit and immigration.
Labour’s leadership could champion a position on Europe radically distinct from the Tories and reach out to those in the PLP with experience of Government to craft a programme of credibility as well as change.
Or they could dismiss the need for compromise and double down in their efforts to make their takeover of the Labour Party complete.
The Labour Party should be cautious in thinking ‘one more heave’ will deliver victory next time.
The Corbyn campaign was a positive factor in the election result; but the determining factor was the Tory campaign.
In all the elections since 1979, the result at the end was more or less what I expected at the beginning.
Not this time. There is no doubt in my mind that at the beginning of the campaign the public were indeed about to give the Tories a landslide. After all, we had just had a really poor local election result, a normally reliable predictor.
What happened is a perfect illustration of why the Greeks were right that hubris is always followed by nemesis.
Their error was less in calling the election than in the conduct of it.
The winning strategy was the one they started with: Theresa May is a Leader above party, asking for a strong negotiating hand to get the best Brexit deal.
But instead of keeping to it, they shattered it.
Brexit policy turned into Hard Brexit or ‘No Deal’ Brexit, rather than the ‘best deal for Britain’. The manifesto was not above party but absolutely of the Tory Party: austerity, typical tough Tory policy on social care and school meals, plus fox hunting.
The public recoiled.
The 16m who voted Remain realised they had to vote to defeat the Brexit mandate she was seeking. Anyone who cared about the public realm, and wished for an end to or an amelioration of austerity, understood this was their only opportunity to register that wish.
Not foreseeable; but on reflection completely explicable.
The Labour electoral performance was unexpected. But that is exactly why we have to be careful in interpreting it. Victories in Kensington and Canterbury were amazing. But losses in Middlesbrough and Stoke were equally alarming.
The Corbyn enthusiasm, especially amongst the young, is real, but I would hesitate before saying that all those who voted Labour voted to make him Prime Minister; or that they supported the body of the programme rather than its tone.
I think they thought that the likelihood was that the Tories would be the Government, but were determined to neuter the mandate.
This is why you could have – another unique dimension to the election – candidates standing for Labour overtly distancing from Jeremy Corbyn and yet still being elected, some with big majorities.
The common refrain amongst some Labour MPs is the policies were popular and if we retain them and unite we will win next time.
We should beware our own form of hubris.
The Tories are not going to run another campaign like that one.
Next time, Labour’s economic programme will come under vastly greater scrutiny. No one is going to believe that there is not a real possibility of Jeremy Corbyn as Prime Minister. The campaign mishaps which happened every time the spending figures were put under the spotlight won't pass so easily.
Understandably, some Labour MPs who, only weeks ago, thought their best hope of salvation rested on disassociation from the Leader, now feel disoriented.
But policies which were wrong in May didn't suddenly become right in June.
Many in this election voted with profound reluctance. There were an unusual number of voters making up their mind very late.
Ultimately neither Party won a majority.
It is true that politics has changed dramatically from 10 years ago.
Our poll shows people want change and by large numbers and in all three countries. Years of austerity and an acute sense of an elite separated from the rest has led to a belief that the promise of generational progress has ended. This generation believes it has done better than the last. But it does not believe the next generation will do better than them.
That is the market of anxiety in which the populists peddle quack solutions.
But the poll also shows that support for the centre stays strong. People will default to populism when a radical centre is not on offer; where it is, they will vote it in, as Macron has shown.
I am not advocating a new Party. Quite apart from the desirability of such a thing, our political system puts formidable barriers in its path.
In any event, as a member of the Labour Party of over 40 years standing, I want the Labour Party to capture this ground.
But there are millions of politically homeless in Britain. They are not going to wander the by-ways of politics, bedding down uncomfortably, forever, not with their country in the dire shape it is in.
The challenge for the centre is to be the place of changing the status quo not managing it.
If it does, it still beats everything else.
What the progressive centre lacks is a radical policy agenda. This is the most immediate task and the one to which my new Institute is devoted.
One of the most dispiriting aspects of the election campaign was the absence of serious debate about the real challenges Britain faces.
AI, automation and Big Data will usher in a new workplace revolution. The NHS, our school and skills system, ‘early years’ education, welfare and retirement need to be re-designed fundamentally to take account of technology, scientific development, and changing demographics and lifestyle.
Communities and people left behind by globalisation need to be helped by specific measures which connect them to the mainstream economy.
The infrastructure of Britain has to be built anew to link up the regions of the country and take advantage of our assets – geography, history, language and a culture which, despite everything, the world still admires.
We need an ambitious affordable housing programme.
Austerity should end; but its’ ending should place an even greater responsibility on Government to seek solutions which change systems and not just pump money into them.
Britain has to escape the cul de sac of backward-looking pessimism with a programme of national renaissance, drawing on the best and most creative minds, to produce the new thinking which can shape our future; and can re-kindle optimism.
This is why Brexit matters so much. It is not merely damaging in itself; it is a massive distraction. Whilst other countries are moving down the fast lane of progress, we are stuck on the hard shoulder of nostalgia.
In this time of accelerating change, we are offered two different types of conservativism, one of the right and one of the left.
The election was fought like one from the 1980s, but with two competing visions of the 1960s.
Neither answers the call of the future.
Politics today are volatile and unpredictable. In these times, best hold to what you believe.
The centre may appear marginalised; but in the hearts and minds of many, it simply needs to be renewed.
Brexit makes this renewal urgent.
