By Martin Thomas
Where did Jeremy Corbyn’s decision (26 January 2017) to impose a three-line whip on Labour MPs to vote for Theresa May’s Brexit Article 50 bill come from? The first pressure that way came from Tom Watson.
May has made it clear that the Tories will put limiting freedom of movement for workers first; will quit the single market; and also will largely quit the EU customs union (broader than the single market: it also includes Turkey, for example). Giving May the go-ahead is helping the Tories to pursue that agenda.
Until recently Corbyn has been courageous in standing up for freedom of movement. On 5 November Corbyn told the Sunday Mirror that Labour would vote in Parliament against triggering “Article 50” unless the Tory government agreed to Labour’s “Brexit bottom line”.
Corbyn stated the “bottom line” as continued UK membership of the “single market”, within which customs duties and checks are abolished and trade regulations are uniform, but it was clear that also implied continued freedom of movement.
Then Labour’s right-wing deputy leader Tom Watson intervened to say that Labour would put “single-market” amendments, but would vote for “Article 50” regardless.
Corbyn went quiet and evidently deferred to Watson and to the bulk of the Labour right. They argue that Labour must placate anti-immigrant sentiment by backing May on Article 50. They are ready to support May whatever version of Brexit she pushes.
Some on the left have argued in favour of Labour backing Article 50. Owen Jones wrote in the Guardian (19 January): “Jeremy Corbyn has no choice but to back article 50”. Paul Mason tweeted (also 19 January) that Labour should back Article 50: “Corbyn here is ahead of many metropolitan liberals/ left still in denial and hoping Brexit will not happen. Hard place to be but right”. But the initiative was taken by the Labour right. And appropriately. The decision suits their politics.
It is a reasonable suspicion that backroom people such as Seumas Milne and Andrew Murray who (like Tom Watson) have a Stalinist background will have pushed in the same direction. That tells us, not that Tom Watson is really left-wing, but that Stalinism is not and never was really left-wing.
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“The first pressure that way came from Tom Watson.”
Source?
Hats off to Corbyn for standing firm on something for a change. We don’t all support the reactionary free-market bollocks of the Free Movement of Persons, with its racist privileging of white people over non-white people.
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2017/jan/26/if-may-betrays-us-on-migration-minority-ethnic-brexiters-will-switch-sides
On Danny: plenty of free marketeers seem quite happy to dispense with free movement of people! In any case, that some free market-supporters support free movement doesn’t settle what socialists should say. Why is free movement reactionary? Capitalism uses it for its own purposes – but then it uses everything. Socialists should not support laws preventing workers from moving and criminalising or discriminating against those who do. In fact we should oppose them.
As for the idea that limiting the rights of Romanians and Poles will strengthen the rights of Syrians or Libyans or anyone else to come to Britain – that’s absurd. At best it will mean levelling down. At worst and most likely it simply strengthens the anti-migrant consensus. Yes, we need to fight for free movement FOR EVERYONE – but we can’t do that by limiting it for some.
Finally, it’s not an “intractable myth” or any kind of myth: the stats are clear. ALL ethnic minorities voted remain by a very big or huge margin. That doesn’t necessarily mean those majorities were right, of course, but the article you cite is living in a fantasy world on that.
Oh – the one exception I can see to that is Sikhs, who of course are overwhelmingly Asian… Not quite sure what to make of that.