The dangerous fallacy of “make Brexit work”
In an interview on last Sunday’s Marr programme, Keir Starmer reiterated his position that Labour is not a party committed to rejoining the EU, and that his policy is to “make Brexit work”. It’s a statement that has caused a mixture of anger and despair on the one hand, and a sort of grudging acceptance on the other, by people who believe it would harm Labour’s electoral prospects to even talk about challenging Brexit.
What does “making Brexit work” mean? This is Starmer’s first problem. Even if you accept that Brexit is a transactional phenomenon, a matter of normal policy, he needs to tell us what a “working Brexit” looks like. What is a “Brexit that works”? What are its success criteria? Starmer’s six tests during the Brexit negotiations included delivering “the exact same benefits” as we had as members of the Single Market and Customs Union — a position wholly incompatible with Starmer’s continued opposition to Freedom of Movement, and rendered unachievable by the economic impacts of the Trade and Co-Operation Agreement that Starmer whipped his MPs to vote through. Does “making Brexit work” mean minimising the damage caused by a series of decisions that Labour backed, while somehow wishing away the economic consequences of a policy that the ONS has described as twice as damaging as Covid? If that is the case, then Labour’s position appears to be desperately lacking in ambition, at the very least.
But even if it were possible to set decent success criteria in transactional terms, that fails to understand that Brexit is at heart a political project — a project of the authoritarian populist Right, one that invokes “the will of the people” as expressed in a corrupt and discredited referendum, and the lie of “taking back control”, to effect a fundamental shift in political power in the UK away from its judicial and democratic institutions. Consider the history: the unlawful prorogation of Parliament; the announcement of the Government’s intention to break international law “in a limited and unspecific way”; the attacks on the Judiciary and lawyers representing those fighting against deportation; the undermining of devolution through the Single Market Bill; the attacks on the independent scrutiny of Parliamentary standards; the packing of the House of Lords and public appointments with donors and cronies. These are fundamental attacks on democracy.
And every one of these is rooted in Brexit — with Brexit providing opportunity, rationale and means to carry them out. When Starmer talks about “making Brexit work”, is he really trying to argue that we should accept the political and cultural changes that Brexit — or, perhaps more accurately, Brexitism — has brought about? Starmer’s Labour rightly attacks the cronyism and corruption at the heart of the modern Conservative Party: but is apparently unable to see that this corruption is Brexit at work, and — for its proponents — Brexit working.
And finally, Brexit’s ideology is firmly based in a vision of Britishness that is based on nostalgia for a fictionalised past — a non-woke golden age of the Dunkirk spirit, of hard-working families, of reference for the flag and in which people of colour, to the extent they were visible at all, knew their place. Faced with this cultural agenda of Brexitism, rooted in falsification and ideological fantasy, talking about making Brexit work makes about as much sense as making unicorns work. (The fact that Blue Labour, a faction whose members surround Starmer, pushes many of the same tropes of flag, faith and family does not make them any more coherent as the basis for a left-of-centre opposition).
So, if Labour’s policy is to “make Brexit work”, does that mean that they accept the assumptions and implications of Brexit as a political project? Leaving Blue Labour aside, I suspect many of the people who support Labour would be horrified at this agenda. But Labour’s risk-aversion — to put it at is politest — threatens to allow this agenda to be carried out by default. And, given that one of the drivers behind that Referendum vote was cynicism about British politicians, one of the requirements for democratic renewal is politicians who are honest and open with the public, who lead rather than acquiesce, and treat the British people as adults to be engaged with, not as passive political consumers to be comforted. You do not win elections by allowing your opponents to set the agenda.
At a time when Britain desperately needs serious, credible, grounded and courageous opposition, the “make Brexit work” slogan is none of those things. It is incoherent, intellectually dishonest, and morally acquiescent. It looks like a tacit admission that Labour has thrown in the towel.
You do not need to be an especially avid follower of British politics to believe that British democracy is facing a profound existential threat. Brexit — and the political project it represents — is both the opportunity and the means for that assault on democracy. Talk of “making Brexit work” is, however well-intentioned Starmer may be, colluding in that attack: it is an act of appeasement. Imagine if Churchill had declared that he wanted to “Make Munich work” — and, yes, the existential threat to British democracy posed by Brexitism is of that magnitude.
What we need now is from opposition parties is leadership, not appeasement. Yes, it’s high risk, but the stakes are high too. If Labour isn’t prepared to take those risks, what is its point?
