Labour describes its manifesto as a document promising transformational change, and indeed the proposals for nationalisation, windfall taxes and soaking the rich do appear to answer to that description. But on the most important question facing the country in this election, Labour offers welcome continuity where the Conservatives are intent on upending the UK economy and disrupting our most important trading relationships.
The chapter “A Final Say on Europe” is one of the clearest and most cogent parts of the manifesto. Although Jeremy Corbyn has been repeatedly lampooned for refusing to say where he stands on whether the UK should ultimately leave or remain, he is in fact offering a completely realistic prospectus that contrasts markedly with the bluster and nonsense being spouted by Boris Johnson and his Hard Brexit squad.
Instead of an implausible – and impossible – promise to negotiate a comprehensive trade agreement within less than 11 months, Labour is raising the prospect of a consensual Brexit that does not wreck the economy – and leaves open the possibility that UK citizens, given the opportunity to have second thoughts, will vote to remain in the EU in a final, “legally binding” referendum. This is nothing but plain and moderate good sense, as is Labour’s consistent opposition to the Tories’ still-looming threat to crash out with no deal next year if they cannot get the “divergent” trade and regulatory terms they are demanding from Europe.
It is true as the manifesto says that the Conservatives have failed over three years to “get Brexit sorted”, and that they are no nearer to a solution now. Natural justice demands that they be punished for this at the ballot box by being denied a majority.
It is also true that a vote for Labour is the route to doing so in most constituencies. Given that pollsters, with one voice, proclaim that it is next to impossible that Labour will itself win a majority on December 12, the party’s soundness on Europe should trump fears that the party will get to implement the wackier partes of its policy platform. Instead it is relatively easy to see how a consensus between the other parties could be forged on the basis of Labour’s “Final Say” approach.
There is more. The detail on Labour’s plans to seek maximum alignment with Europe provides comfort on the feasibility of a proposed renegotiation of the withdrawal agreement and subsequent trade talks under a Corbyn-led government, as does the thoughtful approach to security commitments, citizens’ rights and continued UK participation in EU agencies and funding programmes after Brexit. All of these contrast with Johnson’s woeful lack of clarity on many of these issues, silence on some and lies on others.
So at this election, the choice is indeed between an outcome that would set the UK’s economy and international influence back by decades, and one with a chance of restoring sanity after three years of madness. But contrary to the conventional wisdom coursing through the right-wing press, the first of these outcomes would be brought about by a Tory majority; the second would be quite likely in a hung parliament.
InFacts advises tactical voting in the coming election. Pro-Europeans should back the candidate with the best chance of defeating the Tories, so long as that candidate supports a new referendum.