Love this. Farage hoisted by his own petard - long overdue and a clear way to challenge him. However, it takes a super skilled communicator to do this so Keir Starmer needs an attack dog, maybe trained by Alistair C!
Surely the moment Trump announces (20%) tariffs on UK imports is the perfect time for Starmer is say “this wasn’t our intention, but in the light of the grave potential danger to the UK economy, we have decided to accelerate negotiations with the EU to enter a Single Market/customs union/whatever”?
What a fantastic "glass half full" commentary (for a Remainer, like me, at least). But can the PM, as Lewis says, make political capital of this opportunity? If he can, it will be a Churchillian moment for him. And the benefit for the UK would be almoat incalculable.
Davey's timing is good but I feel this is a misstep. Rules of origin could be addressed by joining the PEM Convention along with EU, EFTA, Ukraine, non-EU Balkan states etc. A customs arrangement for Northern Ireland would be required but a union is limiting, not least were UK wanting to join the Single Market- A position that Liberal Democrats had put forwards at conference a few years ago by Layla Moran- and removes trade sovereignty. This mangling of positions is frustrating and I thought MPs had begun to learn from past mistakes. It's typical flip-flopping we are so common to seeing in British politics, as it was during indicative votes between Common Market 2.0 and Customs Union. All it does is kick the issue of free movement of people that bit further down the road. A Single Market Agreement tackles trade barriers, more so than a CU ever would and is by far the better arrangement UK should be seeking. It wouldn't be reversing Brexit.
MPs must get past this fear of discussing immigration. We are 10/11 years on from the refugee crisis and 9 years since Brexit. Politicians continue to equate small boat crossings with FoM, which only spreads misinformation amongst the electorate and fails to tackle one of the main drivers of UK withdrawal from EU. Once we are able to do that then it makes conversations on youth mobility, visa waivers and free movement so much easier.
Agreed - I continue to fail to see why commentators obsess over rejoining the Customs Union, a decision that would do relatively little for UK businesses compared to the damage it would do to UK trade policy, compared to rejoining the Single Market, a policy that actually would meaningfully improve UK export capacity to the EU without completely destroying the prospect of an independent trade policy.
FWIW I don’t think we should be either - the EU is too terrible at regulation for a country as optimised around innovation as the UK (particularly if it doesn’t get a vote in it), and the foreign trade relationships likely to be actually meaningful would likely involve alignment incompatible with the SM. Still, if you’re going to propose rejoining one of them then at least pick the one that isn’t objectively worse than our current position.
I'm not convinced that Labour has much to lose from reinstating FoM, as the types of voters who would see that as a deal-breaker are mostly in two categories, neither of which is likely to have voted for any progressive party even in 2024.
1) "White Van Man" self-employed tradesmen, who made bank in the early Blair years from the labour shortage in the "trades" created by Blair's focus on university expansion, and were angered that Eastern European immigrants derailed their gravy train after 2005, and
2) Residents of ultra-Brexity rural areas (especially in Lincolnshire and East Anglia) that saw big influxes of Eastern European agricultural workers.
The anti-immigration sentiment that is far more electorally relevant is hostility to immigrants from Africa and the greater Middle East: there's a reason why Elon Musk zeroed in on the grooming gangs issue in an attempt to boost Reform's chances (and also why he'd like to replace Nigel Farage with a more open racist like Tommy Robinson). Note that a lot of the grooming gangs were operating in Red Wall towns.
I don't suggest that anywhere. I want our Governement to start speaking honestly about the situation. Stop presenting youth mobility and free movement as inherently bad things. The customs union barely addresses trade barriers. EU Commission even pointed this out to Westminster during negotiations in hope of UK-EU striking a better deal than the one we ended up getting. Alignment on standards would remove more barriers that SME are currently dealing with. Joining a CU is wasted time when UK is better off negotiating a Single Market agreement. UK can add on a customs arrangement. It would be expected, if only to ensure ease of trade across to Northern Ireland, Gibraltar and Cyprus. It would be more difficult to apply the other way around, without full EU membership. There is no existing framework that provides a customs union and SM outside of that.
It’s a good analysis but to make it land the Labour Party really need a overriding comms narrative to put any decision in a broader context. What type society are they looking build and why this is an important step on the path
I listened to the podcast and I thought it was a very interesting interview with Davey. I've not been able to write those words very often. He had a confidence and 'maturity' that I hadn't seen much evidence of before.
My political antenna is dodgy so this might not be of much comfort to the Lib Dems, but I think they've arrived at an excellent series of tactics to increase awareness, differentiation and vote share.
1) Do daft stuff to get known (Chessington, getting wet in swimwear, HIGNFY, etc.)
2) Be THE party of "formal" closer ties to the EU. "Unlike Labour, The Conservatives and Reform, The Lib Dems are the only party looking to re-join the customs union now!" (my positioning statement, not theirs).
This will be attractive to a lot of the centre-ground Remainers and in Remain-friendly constituencies where the Lib Dem dogs will be fighting the Labour and Reform wolves for the remains of the Tory carcass, this will have an impact.
3) This next tactic was so obvious but calling it out as a differentiator sounded somehow "genius" to me. Davey said they want to be the "Best Opposition" - I think that was his phrase. In order to do that he said that they won't just chirp from the benches but explain in detail why what Labour is doing is wrong and detail how they would be different. This Brexit positioning is presumably one such policy but he cited others - on pensioner fuel. farmer taxes, etc.
This will be in contrast to Bedenoch who is (sensibly?) keeping her powder dry. Observing for a couple of years before forming what will be their manifesto. Risking "No plan" jibes. If she's there in 2 years.
4) Lastly, all of this with little risk of losing their base. And, whilst they are UNLIKELY to get power, they are able to paint that wish-list of policies that give people a sense of who they are but perhaps not how they will fund it all.
Imagine if they were to go into an election able to be confident in being the only Rejoin (CU) party, and if Lewis, you are correct that maybe the Brexit weather is changing, then they are very likely to be able control vote share in certain constituencies and maybe be king-maker in a coalition.
The Labour party members including myself would support rejoining tomorrow - but it is not clear what the electoral ramifications are - I suspect we will edge closer to the EU roughly halfway thru the Trump Presidency when some of the unknowns begin to reveal themselves, giving a clearer direction in time for the next GE.
Until then the government will be judged on the economy and domestic issues... where it is results that count - improvements here will hit support for Reform and Tories/ERG.
The dilemma being that improvement in the economy/domestic issues is best delivered by a closer relationship with the EU.
Love this. Farage hoisted by his own petard - long overdue and a clear way to challenge him. However, it takes a super skilled communicator to do this so Keir Starmer needs an attack dog, maybe trained by Alistair C!
Surely the moment Trump announces (20%) tariffs on UK imports is the perfect time for Starmer is say “this wasn’t our intention, but in the light of the grave potential danger to the UK economy, we have decided to accelerate negotiations with the EU to enter a Single Market/customs union/whatever”?
What a fantastic "glass half full" commentary (for a Remainer, like me, at least). But can the PM, as Lewis says, make political capital of this opportunity? If he can, it will be a Churchillian moment for him. And the benefit for the UK would be almoat incalculable.
Davey's timing is good but I feel this is a misstep. Rules of origin could be addressed by joining the PEM Convention along with EU, EFTA, Ukraine, non-EU Balkan states etc. A customs arrangement for Northern Ireland would be required but a union is limiting, not least were UK wanting to join the Single Market- A position that Liberal Democrats had put forwards at conference a few years ago by Layla Moran- and removes trade sovereignty. This mangling of positions is frustrating and I thought MPs had begun to learn from past mistakes. It's typical flip-flopping we are so common to seeing in British politics, as it was during indicative votes between Common Market 2.0 and Customs Union. All it does is kick the issue of free movement of people that bit further down the road. A Single Market Agreement tackles trade barriers, more so than a CU ever would and is by far the better arrangement UK should be seeking. It wouldn't be reversing Brexit.
MPs must get past this fear of discussing immigration. We are 10/11 years on from the refugee crisis and 9 years since Brexit. Politicians continue to equate small boat crossings with FoM, which only spreads misinformation amongst the electorate and fails to tackle one of the main drivers of UK withdrawal from EU. Once we are able to do that then it makes conversations on youth mobility, visa waivers and free movement so much easier.
Agreed - I continue to fail to see why commentators obsess over rejoining the Customs Union, a decision that would do relatively little for UK businesses compared to the damage it would do to UK trade policy, compared to rejoining the Single Market, a policy that actually would meaningfully improve UK export capacity to the EU without completely destroying the prospect of an independent trade policy.
FWIW I don’t think we should be either - the EU is too terrible at regulation for a country as optimised around innovation as the UK (particularly if it doesn’t get a vote in it), and the foreign trade relationships likely to be actually meaningful would likely involve alignment incompatible with the SM. Still, if you’re going to propose rejoining one of them then at least pick the one that isn’t objectively worse than our current position.
I'm not convinced that Labour has much to lose from reinstating FoM, as the types of voters who would see that as a deal-breaker are mostly in two categories, neither of which is likely to have voted for any progressive party even in 2024.
1) "White Van Man" self-employed tradesmen, who made bank in the early Blair years from the labour shortage in the "trades" created by Blair's focus on university expansion, and were angered that Eastern European immigrants derailed their gravy train after 2005, and
2) Residents of ultra-Brexity rural areas (especially in Lincolnshire and East Anglia) that saw big influxes of Eastern European agricultural workers.
The anti-immigration sentiment that is far more electorally relevant is hostility to immigrants from Africa and the greater Middle East: there's a reason why Elon Musk zeroed in on the grooming gangs issue in an attempt to boost Reform's chances (and also why he'd like to replace Nigel Farage with a more open racist like Tommy Robinson). Note that a lot of the grooming gangs were operating in Red Wall towns.
Not sure “Brexit’s shit, let’s not do anything about it” is as winning a strategy as you suggest in the final para.
I don't suggest that anywhere. I want our Governement to start speaking honestly about the situation. Stop presenting youth mobility and free movement as inherently bad things. The customs union barely addresses trade barriers. EU Commission even pointed this out to Westminster during negotiations in hope of UK-EU striking a better deal than the one we ended up getting. Alignment on standards would remove more barriers that SME are currently dealing with. Joining a CU is wasted time when UK is better off negotiating a Single Market agreement. UK can add on a customs arrangement. It would be expected, if only to ensure ease of trade across to Northern Ireland, Gibraltar and Cyprus. It would be more difficult to apply the other way around, without full EU membership. There is no existing framework that provides a customs union and SM outside of that.
Brexit was a trial run for the stealing of the US election in 2016.
All the players, CA, AIQ, Russia, corrupted media, kompromised politicians , and the MO was the same...
Never forget targeted ads and vote suppression.
Because ultimately Brexit and Trump are astroturfed... the strategy was to puff... they are built on sand.
It’s a good analysis but to make it land the Labour Party really need a overriding comms narrative to put any decision in a broader context. What type society are they looking build and why this is an important step on the path
I listened to the podcast and I thought it was a very interesting interview with Davey. I've not been able to write those words very often. He had a confidence and 'maturity' that I hadn't seen much evidence of before.
My political antenna is dodgy so this might not be of much comfort to the Lib Dems, but I think they've arrived at an excellent series of tactics to increase awareness, differentiation and vote share.
1) Do daft stuff to get known (Chessington, getting wet in swimwear, HIGNFY, etc.)
2) Be THE party of "formal" closer ties to the EU. "Unlike Labour, The Conservatives and Reform, The Lib Dems are the only party looking to re-join the customs union now!" (my positioning statement, not theirs).
This will be attractive to a lot of the centre-ground Remainers and in Remain-friendly constituencies where the Lib Dem dogs will be fighting the Labour and Reform wolves for the remains of the Tory carcass, this will have an impact.
3) This next tactic was so obvious but calling it out as a differentiator sounded somehow "genius" to me. Davey said they want to be the "Best Opposition" - I think that was his phrase. In order to do that he said that they won't just chirp from the benches but explain in detail why what Labour is doing is wrong and detail how they would be different. This Brexit positioning is presumably one such policy but he cited others - on pensioner fuel. farmer taxes, etc.
This will be in contrast to Bedenoch who is (sensibly?) keeping her powder dry. Observing for a couple of years before forming what will be their manifesto. Risking "No plan" jibes. If she's there in 2 years.
4) Lastly, all of this with little risk of losing their base. And, whilst they are UNLIKELY to get power, they are able to paint that wish-list of policies that give people a sense of who they are but perhaps not how they will fund it all.
Imagine if they were to go into an election able to be confident in being the only Rejoin (CU) party, and if Lewis, you are correct that maybe the Brexit weather is changing, then they are very likely to be able control vote share in certain constituencies and maybe be king-maker in a coalition.
It's a tough call for Labour.
The Labour party members including myself would support rejoining tomorrow - but it is not clear what the electoral ramifications are - I suspect we will edge closer to the EU roughly halfway thru the Trump Presidency when some of the unknowns begin to reveal themselves, giving a clearer direction in time for the next GE.
Until then the government will be judged on the economy and domestic issues... where it is results that count - improvements here will hit support for Reform and Tories/ERG.
The dilemma being that improvement in the economy/domestic issues is best delivered by a closer relationship with the EU.
When did the term 'disbenefit' start to become more popular? I'm not sure I'd really heard it much until recently.
I’m sorry but I’m going to have to strongly object here - the case for rejoining the Customs Union is not strong in the slightest, and would put the UK in an actively worse position than it is now. https://backseatpolicycritic.substack.com/p/uk-customs-union-bad-idea
Yes, the Lib Dem’s are not in Government is indeed the most boring thing you’ve ever said on Substack