Monday 4th July 2022

[refitman]

Morning all.

[Willow904]

[AnatolyKasparov]

Another quiet day then, what new revelations from the sordid Westminster pit I wonder.

[Willow904]

From the G liveblog:

Keir Starmer is to set out his vision for Brexit, promising to remove a series of trade and travel barriers while insisting that the debate on any UK return to the single market or customs union is definitively closed.

I definitely get, and more or less agree with the first, rejoining the single market would probably involve becoming part of the Schengen Area as part of the commitment to freedom of movement, an extremely hard sell to current UK voters. I'm less sure why it's necessary to completely rule out a customs union, though. Not that I'm sure what advantages it would deliver. It would do away with the need for a border in the Irish Sea but that's a bigger concern for the Tories and DUP. The NI protocol as it is atm doesn't appear disastrous for the NI economy. Starmer's approach sounds like a piecemeal package evolved and agreed over time, pretty much what the EU was expecting the UK to be negotiating for from the start and as reflects the fact we were never completely "in" the EU in the first place. This wouldn't be a bad place to end up. Ultimately Labour need the next election to be about something other than Brexit and EU relations, they need the EU to return to the boring footnote that nobody really cares about that it was before the Tories elevated it to "the" issue of a toxic and divisive culture war that was carefully crafted to chip off enough of the Labour vote to propel a floundering Tory party to a majority. Labour can't benefit from reviving this debate and nor does it benefit the country. Constitutional reform, on the other hand, is long overdue and a very worthy issue to focus on, along with climate change, of course, on which Labour really need a bold offer.

[AnatolyKasparov]

The fact is that maybe the only serious chance the Tories have of winning again is to make the next GE another de facto referendum on Brexit.

Its not just Labour who are going to approach the issue cautiously as a result (I think the word "rejoin" is effectively banned in LibDem circles)

[refitman]

[refitman]

Uh oh