I see alot of friends here are getting angry at various Starmer comments on Brexit.
I get its an emotional time, but with respect, alot of people arent thinking rationally right now.

No Starmer hasn't gone full Brexit - we need to look a bit more soberly at things.

A thread.

2/

The anger at whether Labour votes for the deal is one of the biggest, dullest non-issues of the day.

Its Johnson's deal - as he insists on telling us at every moment.
The ERG back it.
Labour's vote makes no difference either way.
I'd prefer Abstain - but I dont really care.
3/

Agonising over this is pointless.
A case can be made for all 3 options.

But ultimately its Johnson deal, the Conservatives deal and Labour MPs voting for it won't change that.
Nobody is going to come back & say it was Labour that brought this deal in 2 years time.
Let it go.
4/

A few people have been upset by comments Starmer wont seek to radically change UKs relationship with EU.

2 days before a deal comes in is not the day to say you will radically change it.

So what is Starmer thinking?

Consider...not 2024 - but 2021...
https://t.co/rANEPpWWeM
5/

Its very easy for English people to forget that 2 crucial things coming in 2021 will combine to constrain any UK govt policy on EU - regardless of what Westminister thinks:

1. Scottish elections
2. Northern Irish Census
6/

2021 Scot elections will see SNP majority govt with mandate for referendum.

They get the referendum & leave:
Brexit is known as the Tory policy that destoyed the union forever.

No referendum & its union in crisis & UK state struggling to smooth Brexit as much as possible.
7/

N Irish census will see not just confirmation unionist majority gone forever - but Nat/Cath majority for 1st time.

UK will be absolutely paranoid from then on not to give anymore incentive to vote out.

Scot + NIre are an existential threat for UK.
https://t.co/0SYKFE2NPe
8/

Its always a bad idea to "sell utopia with a fixed date" as what do you do when the date comes?
Brexit - even if not an utter disaster - will be at best a dull dispointment of redtape & reduced oppotunities.

And I'll let you into a secret - 75% of voters don't care for it.
9/

Majority of voters in 2021 will want jobs + decent services + UK not being dismantled.
Only way to get this is getting as close with EU as possible.

And the way to do this is keeping Johnson's deal...then expanding on it come the review in 2026.

To prepare for rejoin....
10/

1. Johnson's deal
2. 2026 Review
3. Rejoin

In that order.

A lot of remainers seem to believe that:

"Rejoining EU will make UK a decent country again."
It won't.

Making the UK a decent country again, solves the EU issue as rejoin becomes not just logical, but inevitable.
11/

in 2016 remainers lost partly as they had difficult arguing against a Brexit nostalgic-utopia,

In 2021-24
Brexietrs will desperately oversee a stuttering economy while bits of the country threaten to (or actually) fall off.

Voters will want competence.
& no EU craziness.
12/

My best outcome?

Competent PM in 2026 not constrained in brexit culture war mud goes to Brussels to sort out lots of dull "techinical fine tuning" (sotto voce: EU alignment) with our 500 million neighbour.

If you have a better, more plausible, idea please tell me.

/Ends
ADD 1

I see alot of remainers arguing
"If Labour doesnt vote against it then Tories will blame them like Iraq war or LibDems with tuition fees"

But if Brexit reaches the stage Tories are comparing it to these - I'll be overjoyed as it means they think its an unpopular disaster.

More from Brexit

This very short article by Jeremy Cliffe is the best thing I have ever read on Brexit and the EU. It pivots on the contrast between Delors’ and Thatcher’s authentically provincial Christian visions and suggests the battle in Britain between the two is not over.


Thatcher: Protestant believer in the totally free market and absolutely sovereign centralised nation state. Delors: Catholic believer in third way personalism, corporatism and federalism. Individualism versus relational love. Heterodoxy versus Orthodoxy.

The article useful gives the lie to the idea that the Catholic vision of the EU has altogether vanished even though it is weakened. Delors wanted a social dimension to the free market and single currency and yet lexiteers laughably insist the EU is more neoliberal than the U.K.!

Subsidiary federalism is a doctrine of democracy and human fraternity. State sovereignty is a doctrine of naked power. It is a face of Antichrist. Leviathan.

Those combined that democracy can only be inside a single state fail to power just how much of private law and evermore so is necessarily international. Thus if political institutions don’t extend over borders there can be no democracy.
So many stories of new barriers to trade between UK and EU, but you might be thinking at some point these will run out. The government is certainly hoping so. Well they may slow down, but trade relations and regulations are not static, and changes will lead to further problems.

The likelihood of continued trade problems for a £650 bn trade relationship is why there should be a huge cross-government effort led by the Foreign Office and Department for International Trade to put in place the necessary resources to seek best results.

There isn't.

So the UK's relationship with the EU currently consists of two not particularly good deals and no consistent effort to manage current problems or prevent future ones. Joint committees are a second order problem to putting in place the right internal structures.

But that's been the consistent UK problem in relations with the EU since 2016. Lack of focus on getting the right internal structures, people, asks, strategy, too much attention on being tough and a single leader.

News just in. This doesn't necessarily mean the right structure being put into UK-EU relations. I suspect Frost's main role is to ensure no renegotiations with the EU.

Also, wonder what this says about the PM's trust in Michael Gove?

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